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YORKSHIRE

ARCHAEOLOGICAL

JOURNAL

VOLUME 51

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

CLAREMONT, CLARENDON ROAD

Founded LEEDS, LS2 9NZ Incorporated

1863 Telephone 457910 1893

Patrons

The Most Reverend the LORD ARCHBISHOP OF
CANTERBURY

The Most Reverend the LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
The MARQUESS OF NORMANBY, m.b.e., d.c.i.

The EARL OF HALIFAX

Brigadier K. HARGREAVES, c.b.e., t.d., ll.d.

President

The EARL OF ROSSE, k.b.e., ll.d., f.s.a.
The EARL OF SCARBROUGH
The LORD TRANMIRE, k.b.e., m.c.

Sir WILLIAM BULMER

G. F. YOUNG, Esq., c.b.e., j.p., ll.d.

H. G. RAMM, O.B.E., M.A., F.S.A.

Honorary Vice-Presidents

Professor JOHN LE PATOUREL, m.a., d.phil., f.b.a. E. A. GEE, m.a., d.phil., f.s.a., f.r.hist.soc.

G. C. F. FORSTER, b.a., f.s.a., f.r.hist.soc.

Vice-Presidents

F. W. BROOKS, m.a., f.s.a., f.r.hist.soc. P. O. WALKER, m.a., ll.b.

Mrs. P. STANLEY PRICE, m.a., f.s.a. G. HINCHLIFFE

ADDYMAN, P. V., m.a., f.s.a. (York)
ALLISON, K. J., b.a., ph.d. ( Cottingham )
BERESFORD, M. W. (Leeds)

BLACK, D. W., b.a., f.s.a. (Appleton Roebuck)
BREARS, P. C. D., d.a.d. (York)

BROWN, T. H„ l.d.s. (Middlesbrough)
CASPERSON, F. P., b.a. (Leeds)

COOPER, W. L. (Leeds)

CROSSLEY, D. W., b.a., f.s.a. (Sheffield)
DARLOW, G. S. (Leeds)

DONAGHEY, B., b.a. (Sheffield)

FRENCH, T. W., m.a., f.s.a. (York)
GOODALL, I. H„ b.a. (York)

HOYLE, R. (Keighley)

Council

JENNINGS, B., m.a. (Hull)

JONES, G. R. J., m.a. (Leeds)

KING, A., b.sc., m.a. (Settle)

MANCHESTER, K., m.b., b.s., b.sc. (Bradford)
MAYES, P., b.a., f.s.a. (Leeds)

MIRSKY, N. (Shipley)

NUTT ALL, Mrs. B., b.sc. (Leeds)

PICKLES, Mrs. M. F. (Ilkley)

RAHTZ, P. A., m.a., f.s.a. (York)

SLATCHER, W. N., m.a., m.sc., ph.d. (Wakefield)
SPEAK, H„ f.r.g.s. (Wakefield)

SPRATT, D. A., m.a., p.hd. (Middlesbrough)
WAIGHT, E. C. (Harrogate)

WORDINGHAM, Miss L., b.sc. (Leeds)

All Honorary Officers, Hon. Secretaries of Committees and of Sections, Representatives of Group and Affiliated
Societies, the Librarian and Inventory Officer are ex officio members of the Council.

Honorary Secretary: P. B. DAVIDSON, m.a., Grafton Manor, Grafton, York.

Honorary Treasurer: R. G. HIRST, Claremont, Clarendon Road, Leeds.

Honorary Editor: R. M. BUTLER, m.a., ph.d., f.s.a., Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England),
The White House, Clifton, York YO3 6AE.

Hon. Secretary, Record Series: J. TAYLOR, m.a., Storey Cottage, Kirkby Overblow, Harrogate.

Hon. Secretary, Parish Register Section: D. J. H. MICHELMORE, b.a., Claremont, Clarendon Road, Leeds.
Hon. Secretary, Wakefield Court Rolls Section: K. EMSLEY, m.a., ll.b., 34 Nab Wood Drive, Shipley,
West Yorkshire.

Hon. Lectures Secretary: Mrs. C. M. SQUIRES, b.a., 2 Well Royd, Knott Lane, Rawdon, Leeds LS19 6JW.
Hon. Secretary, Ancient Monuments: Mrs. R. HARTLEY, 6 Margaret Road, Harrogate.

Hon. Secretary, Historic Buildings: L. A. S. BUTLER, m.a., ph.d., f.s.a., 89 Otley Old Road, Leeds LS16 9HG.
Hon. Excursions Secretary: J. GOODCHILD, 12 Shakespeare Avenue, Normanton, West Yorkshire.

Hon. Publicity Secretary: J. K. SAUNDERS, m.a., 3 Sandhill Drive, Leeds LS17 8DU.

Hon. Membership Secretary: Miss A. M. BOYLE, Claremont, Clarendon Road, Leeds.

Hon. Secretaries of Sections

Prehistory Research Section — T. G. MANBY, m.a., Museum and Art Gallery, Chequer Road, Doncaster.

Roman Antiquities Section — I. NAYLOR, 83 Green Lane, Wyke, Bradford.

Medieval Section — Mrs. K. M. HALL, 3 Willow Court, Pool, Near Otley, West Yorkshire.

Georgian Section — W. HARWOOD LONG, m.a., Carfax, 73 Gledhow Wood Road, Leeds 8.

Local History Study Section— Mrs. J. FORESTER.

Industrial History Section — Mrs. N. M. COOPER, 307 Spen Lane, Leeds 16.

Family History and Population Studies Section — Mrs. J. HANSON, 108 Kitson Hill Road, Mirfield.

Aerial Archaeology — D. N. RILEY, d.f.c., f.s.a., 3 High Wray Close, Sheffield Sn 9SF.

Representatives of Groups and Affiliated Societies

Forest of Galtres Society — G. R. DRAKE.

Pontefract and District Archaeological Society — E. HOULDER, l.r.p.s.

Huddersfield and District Archaeological Society — W. E. CROSLAND, b.ch.d., l.d.s.

Olicana Museum and Historical Society — Mrs. E. A. P. GREENWOOD.

Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society — D. BRINKLOW, b.a.

Doncaster Group — G. NICHOLSON.

Harrogate Group — Mrs. R. HARTLEY.

Victorian Society — Mrs. D. PAYNE.

Librarian: Mrs. K. A. JOHNSTON, b.a., dip. lib., Claremont, Clarendon Road, Leeds.

Archivist: Mrs. S. THOMAS, Claremont, Clarendon Road, Leeds.

Inventory Officer: DILWYN JONES, b.a., The Yorkshire Museum, Museum Gardens, York.

THE

YORKSHIRE

ARCHAEOLOGICAL

JOURNAL

A REVIEW

OF HISTORY, ANTIQUITIES AND TOPOGRAPHY IN THE COUNTY
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COUNCIL

OF THE

YORKSHIRE! ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

VOLUME 51

FOR THE YEAR

1979

ISSN 0084-4276

PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY BY
ARTHUR WIGLEY & SONS LTD., LEEDS

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2017 with funding from
Yorkshire Archaeological & Historical Society

https://archive.org/details/YAJ0511979

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 51

page

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REGISTER: 1978 1

ARCHAEOLOGY AND PALAEOBOTANY ON THE NORTH YORK MOORS AND THEIR

ENVIRONS 15

R. L. Jones, P. R. Cundill and I. G. Simmons

BRONZE AGE BURIALS FROM WETWANG SLACK 23

John S. Dent

THE GIGGLESWICK TARN LOGBOAT 41

Sean McGrail and Sonia O’Connor

TINSLEY ‘RENTALS’, 1336-1514 51

David Postles

THE ELAND MURDERS, 13 50-1 : A STUDY OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND FEUD . . 61

J. M. Kaye

RAVENS WORTH CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE 81

Peter F. Ryder

LABOUR REGULATION AT HULL, 1560: SELECT DOCUMENT ioi

Donald Woodward

THE ROLES OF A WEST RIDING LAND STEWARD, 1773-1803 105

Gary Firth

THE WEST RIDING CROP RETURNS FOR 1854 117

J. Phillip Dodd

‘THE OLD CROPPING SHOP’ 13 1

R. A. McMillan

SHORTER NOTES AND CONTRIBUTIONS

A DISCOID AL KNIFE FROM KEPWICK AND NEOLITHIC FINDS FROM POCKLINGTON . . 137

W. A. Mackay

BRONZE AGE ROUND BARROWS AND ADJACENT EARTHWORKS ON THE HAMBLE-

TON HILLS 141

Raymond A. Varley

A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY BRONZE SKILLET FROM NEAR PATELEY BRIDGE . . . . 147

J. A. Gilks

A NOTARY’S GRAVE COVER FROM HOOTON PAGNELL, SOUTH YORKSHIRE . . .. 151

Peter F. Ryder

A NOTE ON THE HIDDEN MISERICORD OF SWINE 153

R. Williamson

A NOTE ON DENTON HALL, WHARFEDALE 157

May F. Pickles

TREE RING DATING OF TWO GEORGIAN HALLS NEAR DONCASTER 159

Ruth A. Morgan

ARCHIVAL NOTES 163

BOOK REVIEWS AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 169

The Editor of the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal in 1973, the present Editor and
Mr. Colin Holmes would like to emphasise that the thesis of Dr. Joseph Buckman,
referred to in footnote 5, p. 158 of Vol. 45, has in fact become available for
consultation since 1973. They regret any impression to the contrary which that
footnote conveys.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol, 51, 1979

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REGISTER: 1978

COMPILED BY S. MOORHOUSE
PREHISTORIC

CADEBY (SK 522994) A. Peace reports a Mesolithic site on the bank of the River Don where it flows through a
gorge of Magnesian Limestone, close to marshy ground. The material collected so far consists of the following flint
artifacts: 14 scrapers, 6 microliths, 93 retouched flakes, 3 utilised flakes, 3 awls, 3 gravers, a borer and 11 cores. There
were also a scraper and a retouched flake in dark grey chert. Also found on the site were a small end scraper, a round
button scraper and two retouched flakes in a honey-coloured flint, showing the more advanced pressure flaking of
the Neolithic/Bronze Age. Part of the material is in Doncaster Museum, the rest in the finder’s possession.

COLLINGHAM, DALTON PARLOURS (SE 402445) An Iron Age settlement of linked irregular, single-ditched
enclosures underlay the Roman villa (see Romano-British section) and was shown by aerial photography to extend
outside the excavated area to cover more than 2 ha (c.5 acres). There were round houses of ring-groove, ring-gully
and post-hole type; sunken hearths; four-post structures; and storage pits. Hand-made coarse pottery was recovered.
Some of the silted-up Iron Age ditches were recut to enclose at least three sides of the villa.

CONISBROUGH, CADEBY CLIFF (SK 511998-512997) A. Peace reports a circular or D-shaped enclosure at
SK 513997, first discovered as a cropmark in 1975 and showing as a circle broken in two places, similar to a ‘henge’
ditch. From the ground the enclosure is well scooped out in the shape of a basin with a slight central mound and
measures approx. 70 m in diameter. Cropmarks from the ground suggest that the ditch is more likely to be an
internal feature in relationship to any banks. The site, on the edge of a cliff in the Magnesian Limestone gorge, has
a commanding view up the River Don to Sheffield and the Pennines.

Field walking of the enclosure and the surrounding area has produced the following flint material: 31 scrapers,
52 retouched flakes, 3 reworked flakes, 3 awls, a graver, 3 microliths, a saw, 3 knives, 5 cores, 4 broken spear or
arrow points, 2 barbed and tanged, 2 leaf-shaped and a hollow-based arrowhead, a ‘slug’ tool, and a blade fragment
from a polished flint axe. Part of the material is in Doncaster Museum, the rest in the finder’s possession.

EAST NEWTON AND LAYSTHORPE See Post-Medieval Section.

EGTON, WHEELDALE GILL (Area centred SE 795994) A group of about 60 stony cairns was located by
D. Smith on a south-facing slope ofEgton High Moor, N.W. of the confluence of Wheeldale Gill and Colher Gill.
Lying between the 675 and 775 foot contours, the cairns are distributed over an area of approximately 12 acres.
The group was surveyed by D. Smith and C. J. Ladley, and will form the subject of a detailed report in a forth-
coming Trans. Scarborough and District Archaeol. Soc.

GIGGLESWICK T. C. Welsh reports the following finds from the area:

GIGGLESWICK, BUCK HAW BROW (SD 796661) A cairn 12 m diam, 1-3 in high with evidence of a kerb,
lies on an eminence to the W of a public footpath near the gate at the point.

, STACKHOUSE (SD 805661) The foundation of a wall 2 m thick, 16 m long across a promontory and

extending in a curve on the N and S sides, delimits an area about 40 m across. Traces of circular structures he within,
on a deeply eroded limestone pavement. The site lies on a tabular ridge of limestone rising to the E and forming a
promontory into a steep-sided solution hollow, and creating a defendable position.

, (SD 807664) A cairn, 9-10 m diam. and robbed to expose a possible cist 1-94 in by 0-35 m, overlooks a

small ravine to the N.

, (SD 813657) A cairn, 14 m diam. and 1-5 m high, lies on an eminence c.40 m NW of a footpath.

HICKLETON, BARNBURGH CLIFF (SE 493040/SE 494040) A. Peace reports the finding of ten flint scrapers
and four retouched flakes, within a known enclosure. Now in Doncaster Museum.

HIGH MELTON A Peace reports having found a leaf-shaped arrowhead on the surface of a ploughed field at
SE 501025 in 1977. Also at SE 5010023 1 a broken leaf-shaped arrowhead and flint knife in honey-coloured flint.
Finds in possession of finder.

HUTTON-LE-ITOLE BECK GARTH (SE 704901) R. H. Hayes has found three pieces of grey flint and a scraper
below the yellow subsoil, o ver which were several medieval sherds including a light-buff rim of Norman type.

KEPWICK, KEPWICK MOOR (SE 48799232) A round barrow, 10 m in diameter and 0*7 m high, was identified
by G. W. Goodall and D. Smith. Unrecorded previously, the mound has a deep central pit.

KIRKLEATHAM (NZ 593220) D. A. Spratt reports the finding of the front end of a broken polished dark
greenstone axe; the axe is 7-5 cm long, maximum width 5*2 cm, 1-5 cm thick and of oval cross-section. Retained by
the finder, Mr. Lockhart, The Paddock, Kirkleatham.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

LEVISHAM, LEVISHAM MOOR (SE 84469408) A heather-clad round barrow, 10 m in diameter and 0-7 m high,
was identified and surveyed by D. Smith. Lying approximately 380 m W of Gallows Dike and 50 m N of the track
from Saltersgate to Levisham village, the mound has been disturbed slightly at the centre.

MARR, MARR THICK (SE 496049-497050) The following finds of flints were made by A. Peace: a leaf-shaped,
a barbed and tanged, and a transverse arrowhead, 12 scrapers, 21 retouched flakes, a saw-edged blade and a microlith.
Sherds of possible Iron Age pottery came from 49680508, within a well known enclosure site, and a sherd of possible
Bronze Age or Neolithic pottery was found in the area. Some of this material is in Doncaster Museum, the rest in
the finder’s possession.

MEXBOROUGH (SE 493005/6) A. Peace reports that three flint scrapers and six retouched flakes were found near
an enclosure located by D. N. Riley during 1976. Finds in Doncaster Museum.

, (SE 481007) A. Peace reports the discovery of two flint scrapers and one retouched flake on the surface of

subsoil, after the topsoil had been removed for a new housing estate at Windhill. In possession of finder.

MIDDLETON, MIDDLETON MOOR (SE 119521) S. W. Feather reports the remains of two denuded cairns
200 m apart, 8 m and 0-7 m high respectively, on Black Hill.

, (centred at SE 113514) S. W. Feather reports the finding of four cup and ring marked rocks on Middle

and Foldshaw Ridges, until recently covered with vegetation.

NEWTON (SE 820894) A knife made from a flake of light grey to white Wold flint was found by W. Best of
Pickering to the NW of Howlgate Nab. It measures 90 mm in length by 30 mm maximum width tapering to a
point and is worked on one side. Other flakes were found in the vicinity.

PICKERING, COSTA BECK (SE 776809) In the period 1975-7, R. H. Hayes and R. S. Close retrieved a quantity
of Iron Age pottery, numerous animal bones and other artifacts from the banks of the Costa Beck. The other finds
included: a fragment of a lower quern-stone, originally 13 inches in diameter and 4 inches thick, identified by
Professor}. E. Hemingway as massive channel sandstone; a mass of opaque glass slag; fused stones and iron slag,
probably part of a small furnace; part of a triangular clay loom-weight, identified by Mr. Jeffrey May of Nottingham
University Archaeology Department; a large red deer antler, very neatly cut at the tines and end, with four per-
forated holes from which an oval had been extracted. Mr. Hayes was told by T. C. M. Brewster that in 1955 he had
found a blue glass bead at the old site on Costa Beck (see Y.A.J. 30 (1930), 157-72).

R1SHWORTH, CAT HILL (SD 992171) A polished stone axe, found about 1890 on Cat Hill, Rishworth, and
thought lost, has been located by J. A. Gilks amongst material sent on loan to the Tolson Memorial Museum from
Bankfield Museum, Halifax. The axe is 14-7 cm long, 6-7 cm wide at the cutting edge and 3-1 cm wide at the butt.

SAND HUTTON (SE 384822) A petit tranchet arrowhead of grey flint 27 mm long was found by W. A. Mackay.

SCORTON (NZ 23450097) A section cut across the cursus by P. Topping of Newcastle University showed that
both ditches had been recut from a narrower almost V-shape to a wide shallow form. A truncated post-hole was
found dug into the silting of the eastern ditch. A large low mound apparently lay within the ditches at the north-west
end of the cursus. There was also evidence here of external pits possibly holding upright timbers.

SETTLE, VICTORIA CAVE (SD 838650) Alan King reports that a second season of excavation, financed by
DoE and the University of Bradford showed that the entrance of 1838 had been quarried away. The focus of work
was the North Entrance, where quantities of animal bones, apparently butchered, were found with some Roinano-
British pottery, including Samian sherds. Small worked flints occurred and much animal and molluscan material was
obtained from scree voids. Research on flow stone within the cave by M. Gascoyne of McMaster University
produced a series of dates from 17,500 to 3 50,000 before the present. Oxygen isotope ratios of one slab indicate a very
warm, almost sub-tropical, period at 180,000-280,000 B.P. Undisturbed cave earths are still to be found to fit man
into these various chronologies.

SHEFFIELD, BURBAGE BROOK (SK 251807) T. C. Welsh reports that a group of possible cists lie to the NE
of Over Owler Tor. The complex includes two groups of rough, stone-lined, rectangular or oval pits, internally
1-6 by 0-6 m, and small cairns 3-4 by 2-3 m across.

SNILES WORTH Mrs. P. Browarski, D. R. Brown and D. A. Spratt report three prehistoric field systems on
Snilesworth Moor. A very large system lies on theE bank of Proddale Beck at SE 518967, and comprises numerous
cairns, fields, lynchets and tumbled walls. Another large system occupies the W bank of Proddale Beck from
SE 514966 to SE 516970 and comprises cairns, terracing and tumbled walls. Some of the long walls on these sites
are laid at right angles to the stream, similar to the nearby site at Wheat Beck. A smaller and less well-defined system
exists on W bank of the River Rye at SE 512960. It contains cairns, terracing and orthostatic stones but no clearly
defined walling. A saddle quern was discovered near the system and a standing stone of Bronze Age lozenge type,
previously unrecorded, stands on the same moor at SE 511964.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REGISTER! 1978

SOWERBY BRIDGE, CROW WOOD (SE 069241) J. A. Gilks reports that a polished stone axe, found in
Crow Wood late last century, and considered lost, has turned up amongst material from Bankfield Museum, Halifax.
The surface has weathered dull white to buff-grey and there are numerous recent scars and areas of abrasion on both
sides of the blade which is of facetted-oval section; it is 21-2 cm long, 7-5 cm wide at the cutting edge and 7-4 cm
wide at the butt.

TEIW1NG, PADDOCK HILL (TA 030707) The fifth season of excavation at the small circular hillfort was
undertaken by the Prehistory Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society in collaboration with the Sewerby
Hall Museum of the North Wolds Borough Council, under the direction of T. G. Manby. The area between the
southern rampart and the central building was examined.

The Central area, between the Inner Ditch and Central Building, had only one major group of features. A large
oval pit was enclosed by a horseshoe setting of postholes; situated 4 m south of the entrance to the Central Building.
The pit had appeared as a cropmark in air photographs taken in previous years, it was 3*3 m by 2*5 m across and
1 m in depth, cut into the top of the solid chalk. The lower portion was filled with large chalk blocks and chalk
dust; its upper filling was a rich brown soil mixed with burnt stones, sherds and animal bones.

The Inner Ditch was 1-9 111 deep, with a level lloor 1-4 to i-6 m across; the sides vertical but sloping back at
the weathered lips to a width of 3 ‘5 in. After silting the ditch had been re-cut to a depth of i-6 m and an inflow of
clean chalk rubble followed mixed with large quantities of animal bones and sherds. After further natural silting the
ditch was finally filled with brown soil and chalk.

The area south of the Inner Ditch to the rear of the rampart contained large numbers of postholes, some in lines
and others in arcs. One of these concentrations was associated with an area of shallow quarrying. The longest line o
postholes ran for some 16 m parallel with the southern lip of the Inner Ditch. A second line was partial parallel with
it and a third line was at right angles.

In previous years, especially in the 1976 season, shallow slots had been located running across the site that appeared
to be of recent date. Three slots of the same character were located this season, and again seen to post-date the final
filling of the Inner Ditch. These may represent successive bedding trenches for hedges enclosing the Medieval post
mill located on the western rampart in the 1974 and 1976 seasons.

Large quantities of animal bones were recovered from the silting of the Inner Ditch, representing oxen, pig, deer
and sheep or goat. Pottery again represented the Bronze Age bucket-shaped vessels in a coarse calcite-gritted fabric
that predominate at this site but finer carinated vessels were also present. Decoration was confined to fmger-
impressed rims and ribs. A notable addition was a cord-decorated rim fragment of an Early Bronze Age Food Vessel,
the third vessel of this type to be represented at Paddock Hill. Bronze items were an awl, a tracer, a fragment of a
spearhead, a nail-headed pin with concentric decoration and various small fragments of scrap. The flint industry was
again dominated by scrapers ; other stone items were nammerstones and, most significantly, a carved chalk bead.

WARLEY, WAINSTALLS (SE 046287) J. A. Gilks reports that the Late Beaker period battle axe, found near
Robin Hood’s Penny Stone in 1872 and thought lost, has been located in a collection from Bankfield Museum,
Halifax. Made from a slab of fine-grained sandstone 5 cm thick, it measures 25 cm in length and 10 cm in width
at the rounded top; the cutting edge, viewed from the side, is convex, and there is a cylindrical perforation 4 cm in
diameter, 5 cm from the top of the implement.

WENTBR1DGE A. Peace reports the following flint finds: scrapers from SE 478183, 47831866, 48171799 and
49951723, the last from the edge of an earthwork; a core from SE 478180; a barbed and tanged arrowhead and a
burin from SE 47911825 within an enclosure site; and a leaf-shaped arrowhead from SE 50431705. All are in his
possession.

WETWANG (SE 944600) Excavations directed by J. Dent for D.O.E. ( Register 1976, p. 5) continued in Wetwang
Slack. The chief feature was still the Iron Age cemetery first noticed in 1975. This consists of some 150 square
barrows and over 100 other burials, usually crouched or flexed and aligned north-south, many in coffins. A radio-
carbon date of i6o-|-8o be (Harwell 1665) was provided by an early grave. Among objects accompanying the burials
are 31 iron or bronze brooches, 12 iron or bronze bracelets, 7 pendants of bronze, jet, glass and amber, 6 necklaces
of glass beads, a ring-headed pin, an iron sword and iron-bound shield, pig bones and four pots. Earlier material
included a decorated beaker with an inhumation and two small ring ditches, one with a central cremation.

The pattern of scattered round houses was continued by one enlarged from 8-5 m diameter to 11 m with a four-
post structure nearby. The ditches of the trackway beside which the cemetery lay had been recut several times and
one had completely filled up before a ditched enclosure was cut through it in the second century A.D.

WHORLTON, LIVE MOOR (NZ 496012) A previously unrecorded promontory fort was identified by
D. Smith on air photographs and later surveyed by him and G. W. Goodall. A single rampart with external ditch
extends across the west-facing spur of Live Moor to enclose an area of approximately 2 acres known as Knolls End.
Where best preserved the rampart is 7-5 m wide and 2*3 m high externally and 0*5 m internally, while the ditch
is up to 1 '5 m wide and o-6 m deep with a fragmentary counter-scarp bank. The work has been mutilated by
quarrying and associated trackways, but a gap in the rampart and ditch at NZ 49640126 probably represents an
original entrance.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

ROMANO-BRITISH

BRANTINGHAM (SE 935272) A second season of excavation to the south of Cave Road directed by Peter
Armstrong for the East Riding Archaeological Society was designed to rest the ground to the west of a third-century
A.D. stone-built enclosure, examined in 1977, 4 mile to the north of the Roman town of Brough close to the
presumed course of the Haven. Metalling of limestone chippings, gravel and mortar indicated an approach road
entering the enclosure gateway and linking to an associated road alignment on the same north/south axis as the
enclosure itself. Evidence of a second enclosure, or large building on the opposite side of the apparently central road
was found which may be similarly detached. Work proceeding.

BROUGH ON HUMBER (SE 937268) An excavation in Station Road directed by Peter Armstrong for the
Humberside Joint Archaeological Committee and D.O.E. was designed to examine the area lying between the
western defences of the Roman town and the Flaven. Two phases of a limestone consolidated foreshore of the later
medieval period were revealed together with a boundary wall in stone separating these hards from structural
elements, also in stone, fronting the High Street, now Station Road. Medieval silting along a shoreline severely
eroded in the later Roman period appears to have precipitated this process of reclamation at the Haven side. Slight
evidence of the clay-faced rampart of the first military camp of the Flavian period, which barely survived the forces
of erosion, was found close to the modern road line. Finds housed in Hull Museums.

CADEBY (SE 510006) A. Peace reports having found a large quantity of pottery on the surface of a ploughed
field. The material includes Dales ware, Derbyshire Ware and Samian. Now in Doncaster Museum.

CASTLEFORD, LAGENTIVM (SE 426258) In advance of development N of the Parish Church, excavations by
the WYMCC Archaeology Unit located the main N-S Roman road with several phases of early military activity
to the east.

The presumed fort has yet to be identified; but successive, partly superimposed, defended areas were limited by a
series of unrelated ditches, one associated with a clay rampart which survived to 1 m in height.

This was interpreted as a fort annexe, within which a stone bath-house was exposed on the S bank of the Aire.
Most of the building plan was recovered including the frigidarium, tepidarium, caldarium and praefurnium. The frigidar-
ium contained a well-preserved cold bath of opus signinum c. 5 by 3 m, with drainage channels. The hypocausts
below the heated rooms had been rebuilt at a higher level, probably owing to flooding, and the earlier hypocaust
under the tepidarium was virtually intact. A 12 m length of stone culvert may have carried a piped water-supply
from a hillside spring.

Much of the material was Flavian to Hadrianic in date; it included tiles stamped by the Ninth Legion, and
quantities of York legionary-type ware.

COLLINGHAM, DALTON PARLOURS (SE 402445) In advance of plough destruction, excavations on the
site of the known Roman villa over 1-43 ha (3*5 acres) by the WYMCC Archaeology Unit also revealed pre-Roman
and post-Roman activity.

Some of the silted-up Iron Age ditches (see Prehistoric section) were recut to enclose at least three sides of the villa
building complex, established in the late second or third century A.D. The area was bisected by a N-S boundary wall,
at either end of which lay east-west stone ranges, effectively delimiting two yards open to east and west.

The main dwelling-house was of winged corridor plan and faced S into the western enclave. There was a hypo-
caust in the E wing, whilst the apsidal-ended W wing had contained two mosaic floors. A detached bath-house
produced much painted plaster from which a large ceiling panel has been reconstructed. Other structures included
two substantial aisled buildings, one incorporating a suite of five heated rooms besides a T-shaped corn-drier.
A circular well 17-8 m deep yielded waterlogged material with the remains of six wooden buckets and fourth-century
Crambeck pottery.

CONISBROUGH, CADEBY CLIFF (SK 511998-512997) Field walking by A. Peace produced a light scatter of
R-B pottery including Samian and Nene Valley wares. Also at SK 513996 was a broken bronze pennanular brooch,
and at SK 51559974 an AE coin of Constantine I 308-337 A.D. Four sawn-oif antler tips, two other pieces of antler
and eight pieces of bone knife handles which may also have origins in the R-B period of occupation. Finds in
possession of finder.

DONCASTER (SE 574036) Research excavations by J. R. Magilton for Doncaster M.B.C. and D.O.E. N of St.
George’s House, to locate the northern defences of the Roman fort revealed the inner face of the base of a Flavian
turf rampart overlain by a patch of gravel, possibly a later intervallum road and cut through by a number of pits
and gullies, one of which contained a grey ware jar inscribed SATI .... A medieval lime-kiln 3 m in diameter had
been dug through the rampart and a medieval linear feature at the northern end of the site filled with cobbles and
loosely packed earth may have been robbing along the line of the later fort wall.

HICKLETON, BARNBURGH CLIFF (SE 499038) A. Peace reports having found a quantity of R-B pottery
on an enclosure site. The material includes Dales ware, Derbyshire Ware and Samian. There were also several pieces
of R-B roofing tile. Finds in Doncaster Museum.

, (SE 49400404) Miss M. Peace found an AE follis of Constantine I 305-6 A.D. on the surface of a ploughed

field within known enclosure, 1978. In possession of finder.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REGISTER: 1 978

HUTTONS AMBO Mrs. E. King reports that the York Excavation Group has continued work on the Roman-
British site near Huttons Ambo ( Register 1977, p. 10). A T-shaped drying-oven was found, of fourth-century date.
It had been filled in and built over in the same century, but this later phase has largely disappeared in plough damage.
The ‘firebars’ reported last year turned out to be loom weights, and no evidence of any activity other than farming
and weaving has yet been found. Work will continue.

KIRKBYMOORSIDE (SE 680879) The broken end of a bronze brooch was found by T. Clark to the north-east
of High Hagg Farm. The fragment may be from a dragonesque S-type brooch or from a later cruciform brooch
(see an example from Benwell in Archaeol. Aeliana ser. 4, 13 (1936), p. 120). The wings on the foot resemble the
heads of birds, and the piece from High Hagg Farm is similar.

SNAPE (SE 26578472) Tesserae of red tile and floor base fragments were found by W. A. Mackay in the area of a
building known from aerial photographs.

SWAINBY WITH ALLERTHORPE (SE 33448682) Sherds of Huntcliff and grey wares and a sherd of Samian
ware were found by W. A. Mackay.

WHITWELL (SE 28109987) A spindle whorl diam. 33 mm made from a sherd of grey pottery with two paralle
lines across the face was found by W. A. Mackay.

ROMAN ROAD ALIGNMENTS

CARLTON (SE 229426, 234424) Remains of road Margary 72b noted by P. Ross in 1913 have been examined by
A. Womersley. A section previously protected by a plantation had a raised spine consisting of large stones and was
crossed at an angle of 60-70 degrees by a later V-sectioned ditch. A section cut near Otley Old Road showed that
the road’s width was 4-8—5 -3 m and its thickness 0-45 m, with a camber rising to 0-125 m above the curb stones on
the north. To the north of the modern road a piece of the Roman road is well preserved with curb stones surviving
on both sides under a dump of soil.

ELSLACK-BRADFORD-? (Margary 721) Fieldwork and excavation by D. Haigh and the Bradford Grammar
School Archaeological Society has continued ( Register 1975, p. 3).

ELSLACK (SD 928494) Suspected indications associated with the road were recorded on both banks of Elslack
Beck at Cruise Bridge. A mass of small boulders, cobbles, gravel and sand c.6 m long and c.i-2 m deep in the south
bank may be remains of a bridge ramp, thickened foundations associated with a culvert, or collapsed road foundation
material. The road is aligned on the east gate of the fort. Investigations are continuing.

, (SD 931492) Partial remains of a well-graded bridge ramp c.21 m long, c.6 m wide at its base and over 3 m

wide across its top, over 3 m high above the stream., were recorded on the western side of Aire Gill near its confluence
with Elslack Beck.

, (SD 932492-SD 935490) A well-marked intermittent terraceway merging into a similar length of agger was

noted north ofElslack Beck near Mill Cottage. The terraceway is r.200 m long and 5-6 in wide; the agger is 68 m
long; 5-25 m wide and 0-35 m high.

, ( c . SD 938489) A well-marked length of agger 108 m long, 5-5-7 m wide, up to 0-3 m high, somewhat spread

by ploughing, was recorded NE of Stories House running alongside the field boundary on the SE side of the modern
Moor Lane.

, (SD 939489-SD 944487) Continuous irregular encroachments on each side of Moor Lane were noted up to

c.io m wide and over 600 m long. These finds provide previously unknown detailed evidence of the route of M721
on its first alignment SE of the Elslack Fort.

, (SD 932492) Substantial remains of a well-graded bridge ramp or causeway 28-5 in long, 1-5 m high, over

7 m wide at its base, and 6 m wide across its top, composed of boulders, cobbles, gravel and earth, and linked to the
long terraceway noted at SD 932492-SD 935490 were recorded north of the adjacent Elslack Beck.

HUNSWORTH (SE 205293: SE 204293) Two sections, c.87 m apart, were cut at Moorland Nurseries, Tong
Moor. ( Register 1972, p. 201). Both revealed identical features; a gently curving clay profile with a rise of not more
than 10 ems and a width of c.5 m, considered to be little more than the ‘tail’ of an agger. Neither road metalling nor
ditches was present. A Roman coin was found c. 270 m NW, on the postulated line, at SE 202295 hi i960.

GOMERSAL (SE 211288) Excavation at Springfield Farm, Hodgson Lane (1) across an apparent agger ( Register
1972, p. 201) running in the field alongside the lane, and (2) in the lane itself, along both sides of the township
boundary, failed to find any trace of the road. The ground investigated gave evidence of considerable industrial
disturbance.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

GILDERSOME (SE 247279) Excavation in Boundary Close, Gildersome Street, adjacent to A650, across a ridge
running parallel to the township boundary at this point, failed to find any traces of the road. The ground revealed
evidence of considerable mining disturbance. Constructional indications of M721, SE of Bradford, as tested by
excavation, are either scanty or non-existent.

SHEFFIELD T. C. Welsh reports on further fieldwork (Register 1977, p. 11) on Roman roads and bridge sites to
the SW of Sheffield.

■ > (SK 263813) At the confluence of Parsons Brook with Burbage Brook, remains of the abutments and piers of

a bridge, ot possibly part-timbered construction, were found. The W bank abutment follows a 22 m sunken incline
from the end of the road embankment SK 260811 to SK 263813, below Carl Wark. It measures 20 m long, 6-5 m
top width, terminating over 2-5 m above the present flood plain. A later zig-zag track cuts through it twice. At an
interval of 3 m, the stump of a pier, 6- 5 by 2-9 m, incorporating stone blocks, is set in the bank, undercut by the
stream. Two further pier bases can be detected, but the Burbage Brook has eroded 0-5 m into underlying sediments.
The E bank is steeper, and only traces of the abutment remain, topped by an alignment of large rectangular blocks,
indicating the bridge-head. The road has been traced 50 m E, with kerbs, until obliterated by erosion gullies.

ANGLO-SAXON

COLLINGH AM, DALTON PARLOURS (SE 402445) After the abandonment of the villa (see Romano-
British section) in the late fourth century, its boundary ditches were levelled with destruction debris. Within this
were sherds ot an Anglo-Saxon cremation urn. A further rubble spread overlay a flexed inhumation with a bronze
annular brooch thought to be of seventh-century date. For other pottery a Middle Saxon origin has been suggested.
There was no evidence for later occupation.

DARFIELD, ALL SAINTS’ CHURCH (SE 419043) A previously unrecorded fragment of pre-Conquest
sculpture, perhaps part of a cross head, was located when the church was inspected by P. F. Ryder of the South
Yorkshire County Archaeological Unit. The fragment, 360 mm by 140 mm, bears a petalled rosette with a panel of
knotwork on either side and is built into the internal face of the south wall of the tower, approx. 3-1 m above ground
level. Another pre-Conquest sculptural fragment is built into the internal face of the south wall of the north chancel
chapel (now the clergy vestry), a piece 180 mm square bearing interlace motifs, set o-6 m above ground level.

KIPPAX (SE 429310) Excavations by the University of Leeds Students’ Union Archaeological Society produced
no archaeological features on the area which yielded the seventh-century brooch ( Register 1977, p. 11).

SANCTON (SE 903403) Field walking has shown that Anglo-Saxon pottery is being disturbed by deep ploughing
in the area of the 1954-8 excavation of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery (Sancton I; see Myres and Southern, Hull
Museum Publication 218, 1973) and in the fields to the north and east. Three seasons’ further excavation have been
conducted by Nicholas Reynolds for the Humberside Joint Archaeological Committee, financed by D.O.E. and, in
1978, by the American Centre for Field Research. The excavation so far has been aimed at determining the extent
of the plough damage and of the surviving remains. The filling-in of the quarry and dewpond, on the edge of which
the previous excavations had been situated, and the removal of field boundaries, have made precise location of the
earlier trenches exceedingly difficult.

Careful stripping and sieving of the top-soil over 420 square metres have yielded the remains of perhaps 500 pots ;
in the underlying sand, amidst a complex of geological solution holes, some 80 cremations have so far been excavated.
Very many of these had been severely disturbed by the plough, and the remains of some had been dragged a con-
siderable distance downhill. In most cases, however, the bone material is recoverable in full, together with many of
the grave goods accompanying the cremations. These include fragments of bronze brooches, miniature tweezers and
shears in bronze and iron, glass beads, a bone counter, a miniature whetstone, and five bone combs. At least two of
the pots are products of the ‘Sancton-Elkington’ potter identified by Myres, while a complete pot found in 1977
fits into his ‘Sancton-Baston’ group and, like Baston 42, has a cup-shaped lid. One inhumation has been found, of a
young male, accompanied by a spear-head, small bronze belt-buckle, and an iron knife. The finds are expected to be
deposited in Hull Museum. The excavation continues.

YORK The York Archaeological Trust, under the direction of P. V. Addyman, excavated the following:

, (SE 60425168) At Coppergate (excavation supervised by R. A. Hall) two street-front Anglo-Scandinavian

timber buildings were discovered, one with post and plank walls on foundation beams and well preserved insulation
of willow withies. Finds included a double-ended bronze spoon, a jet cross inlaid with orpiment and a sceatta,
presumably a survival, ofEadberht.

, (SE 609514) Excavations at Wahngate by D. A. Brinklow revealed Torksey ware and other Anglo-Scandin-

avian pottery, suggesting occupation of this outlying part of the city in Anglo-Scandinavian times.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REGISTER! 1978

MEDIEVAL

BIRSTALL, OAK WELL HALL (SE 217272) J. A. Gilks for Kirklees Libraries and Museums Service directed two
seasons of excavation at Oakwell Hall. To the south and east of the present hall, erected in 1583, is a broad and
shallow dry moat; two thirds of its length had been re-excavated to natural in the late nineteenth century and early
this century it was given a concrete floor and a stone lining. The ground dips gently on the north and falls away
steeply on the west, so that no moat was required on those sides. There was an inner perimeter wall of coursed
sandstone blocks 1 m thick. Six buildings, three of which were superimposed, have been partially excavated within
the moated enclosure on the east, and one on the west. Five lay parallel or at right angles to the moat and had walls
of coursed sandstone rubble and floors of yellow rammed clay. The remaining buildings, one of which was on the
west, had walls of vertical timber posts set in deep pits and clay floors. Pottery from the former five buildings was
predominantly thirteenth-fourteenth-century East Pennine Gritty Ware, whilst that from the latter two was
fifteenth-century Cistercian and sixteenth-seventeenth-century locally produced coarse wares. No further work is
planned. Finds are in the Tolson Memorial Museum.

BROTTON (NZ 692198) Excavation was continued on this site on the Council Playing Field, by S. K. Chapman
for the Guisborough and District Archaeological Society ( Register 1977, p. 12). Two sections gave the full extent of
the east wall area of the building, showing scattered remains of stone foundations. The clay floor had three postholes
running north-south. Cobblestone areas were again found outside the north and south walls, the latter consisting
of several layers with a base of large boulders. From the south-east corner of the house a paved way, containing half
a rectangular pivot stone in its make up, led south-east. Nearby a squarish stone showed slots from use for sharpening.
Pottery was generally from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries with the earliest pieces coming from the southern
end of the cobbled yard.

BROUGH ON HUMBER See Roman section.

CLECKHEATON Mr. R. Williamson has pointed out that a nude female figure on the south of the Norman
font in Whitechapel church is probably a sheila-na-gig. Such figures are thought to have an apotropaic or fertilizing
significance. Other English examples are known at Austerfleld, South Yorkshire, and Kilpeck, Herefordshire, but
they are more common in Ireland.

DONCASTER See Roman section.

HOOTON LEVITT, MANOR FARM (SK 519914) A range of stone farmbuildings now used as a piggery
incorporates remains of an early medieval house. The earliest part of the structure is a rectangular block 10-2 m by
6-9 m externally, with walls 1*2 m in thickness at ground floor level. Three narrow round-headed windows, deeply
splayed internally, remain. This part of the range may represent a small twelfth-century hall house, but the whole
structure has been much altered and extended westward in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The building was
located by M. Parker of Rotherham Museum, and recorded by P. F. Ryder and S. R. Jones.

HOVINGHAM (SE 665760) A brass rowel spur of early/mid fourteenth-century date was found by W. J. Mar-
wood while walking along a footpath to the W of Hovingham Park. The rowel is missing, and the short shank is
connected to the curving side arms by a bulb decorated with small incisions. The object was identified by Adrian
Havercroft of Verulamium Museum, St. Albans, and presented by the finder to the Ryedale Folk Museum.

HULL, WATERFRONT (TA 102288) Excavations by J. B. Whitwell and B. S. Ayers for Humberside Joint
Archaeological Committee and D.O.E. north of Chapel Lane Staith and east of High Street, Kingston-upon-Hull
were undertaken in an attempt to locate the original W bank of the River Hull and any attendant riverside feature.
The bank was established some 8 m (26 feet) E of High Street compared with a present day alignment of some
80 m (260 feet) east. In addition three successive timber revetments were uncovered of which the first had been
largely removed in antiquity, much of the third remained unexcavated whilst the second survived to its full height
of 3-47 m (11 feet 6 inches), and was associated with a large quayside building above massive limestone and chalk
footings. The revetment was of oak held by mortice and tenon and half-joints and secured by dowels. It could be
dated to the end of the first quarter of the fourteenth century. Joists were also located for planked decking. Quantities
of leather were found. It is hoped to publish the excavation as a volume of the East Riding Archaeologist in 1979.

HUTTON LE HOLE, BECK GARTH See Prehistoric section.

KIRKBYMOORSIDE, HIGH HAGG FARM See Miscellaneous section.

, VIVERS HILL (SE 700868) A ribbed, round-sectioned jug handle in orange fabric with green glaze, probably

of thirteenth-fourteenth-century date, has been found on recent ploughing by B. Allen.

PENISTONE, SCHOLE HILL FARMHOUSE (SE 239027) The remains of this farmhouse were inspected and
recorded by P. F. Ryder and S. R. Jones. The hall block was a stone built structure of seventeenth-century date,
re-using the collared rafters of an earlier hall which was probably timber-framed. The southern cross-wing retained
a section of collared rafter roof, and appeared to have had a framed wall to the N and a stone wall to the S. The
E end of the cross- wing had been rebuilt in the late seventeenth century.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

ROTHERHAM, THE OLD THREE CRANES (SK 429928) This former inn, on the south side of High Street
is now a store. The main block of the building is a three-storey timber-framed structure of late sixteenth or
seventeenth-century date, and has a two storeyed wing at the rear running at right angles to the street. During
recent alterations this rear wing was inspected by P. F. Ryder and S. R. Jones, and proved to be an earlier medieval
hall truncated by the building of the present main block. A bay and a half of the original structure survived. This
had originally been an open hall, with a collared rafter roof, and a coved canopy, part of which survived, at the
S end, presumably over the dais. The S gable of the hall had large curved downbraces from the principal posts to a
bressumer, an unusual feature in this area.

There had been an adjacent framed structure to the S, a few fragments of which had been incorporated in the
brick cladding of the south end of the surviving block. This adjacent structure had also had downbraces, in its N
gable, and appears to have been partly built over stone vaulted cellars, a fragment of which survived.

SCALBY, NEWBY NURSERIES (TA 016902) Mrs. R. M. Palmer reports that a selection of green-glazed
pottery of fourteenth-fifteenth-century date from Newby Nurseries has been deposited in the Scarborough
Museum. The sherds, in a sandy pinkish-buff fabric, include 4 jug handles (3 round-sectioned and grooved, and the
other a strap with incised lattice decoration), a rim, 2 bases and 2 wall fragments.

, NETHERFOLD FARMHOUSE (SK 384952) During the course of modernisation and repairs, this house

was surveyed and recorded by P. F. Ryder and S. R. Jones. The house is a three-bay square-framed structure,
perhaps of fifteenth-century date, retaining its original collared common rafter roof with one of the half hipped
ends intact. The roof has original purlins carried by curving struts rising from the tie-beams of the trusses, a very
similar construction to that seen at The Old Three Cranes in Rotherham (see above). The central bay of the house
had originally been an open hall, with a floored bay at each end. The east bay contained a cross passage, and the
original ceiling beams survived, with a stair trap for a steep staircase or ladder. The house was partly stone clad in
the seventeenth century, and further altered in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries.

THWING, PADDOCK HILL See Prehistoric section.

TICKH1LL, CASTLE GREEN (SK 593931) A building incorporates two bays of a timber-framed block fronting
onto Castlegate, and three bays of a rear wing, the truncated remains of a larger building, probably once an inn.
The two-bay block has had a jettied front elevation, and a crown post roof. The former internal truss exposed at the
S end of the truncated block has curved downbraces to a bressumer, and an ogee-arched door. Several features of
the building, including the roof, are similar to those shown on engravings of the College of the Vicars Choral at
Southwell (Notts), now destroyed, dateable by documentary evidence to 1379. The building was planned and
recorded by P. F. Ryder and S. R. Jones.

, THE FRIARY (SK 586928) The two houses which comprise the remains of the Augustinian Friary of

Tickhill (founded c.1260) were inspected by J. R. Magilton and P. F. Ryder. Both buildings — adjacent blocks
running EW, the eastern adjoining the SE corner of the western — incorporate substantial remains of medieval work,
but are difficult to interpret owing to nineteenth-century alterations which appear to have entailed the re-use of
genuine medieval features removed from their original positions. The surviving features are of thirteenth to six-
teenth-century date, including a fine two-bay arcade at the E end of the western block, which stylistically date to the
last half century of the Friary’s existence. The surviving structures cannot easily be fitted into a conventional claustral
layout.

SCARBOROUGH (TA 043887) Mrs. R. M. Palmer reports that excavation, in advance of the proposed North
Street/St. Thomas Street link road scheme, commenced on North Street. Two trenches were opened, covering a
total area of 72 square m. The area proved disappointing as the whole site had been disturbed by cellars and back-
filled. Further investigation is being carried out on an area of cobbling to the north-east of the site.

Building works at Hintons warehouse in conjunction with the development scheme revealed human remains,
which may be up to 500 years old. The foundation trench revealed three layers beneath the concrete flooring. The
earliest layer, in which the bones lay, was organic clay. This was sealed by a thin layer of carbon which represented
burning. Above this a line of large cobbles set in sand appeared to run in a south-easterly direction, possibly a street.
No dating evidence was found beneath the cobbling. It would appear that the area of great archaeological interest
lies to the east of the site where the building works may hit the boundary wall of the medieval St. Thomas’ Church.

SPAUNTON (SE 72258990) R. H. Hayes reports that a large cook-pot rim, 32 cm in diameter, in a sooty buft
ware of Staxton/Potter Brompton type and probably of twelfth/thirteenth-century date, was found by Mrs. A.
Milestone in her garden at Bank Top Corner Cottage.

SUTTON, CROSS ROAD COTTAGE (SE 551 123) This cottage, inspected during modernisation by P. F.
Ryder, contained the remains of a single truss of its timber-framed predecessor. This had been an aisled building,
with passing braces from the tie-beam to the aisle posts. Re-used material suggested that the original roof was ol
the collared common rafter type.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REGISTER: 1978

THORNTON RISEBOROUGH, ORCHARD HILL (SE 74758235) This site on the SW slope of Orchard
Hill, to the W of Wandale Lane, was suspected to be the location of the deserted medieval village of Thornton
Riseborough after a mound on the side of the lane was sectioned in 1945 (see Wade s Causeivay , Scarborough and
Dist. Archaeol. Soc. Research Report no. 4 (1964) p. 28). The site was unsuccessfully proposed for scheduling in
1947-50.

In October 1977 the farmer, Mr. G. Marton, cut a series of drainage trenches across the field (called ‘The Kilns’
in 1850), which produced large quantities of pot sherds, bones and stone and some iron slag. He gave permission for
a rescue excavation. A prominent mound was chosen as much stonework and pottery had come from the drainage
trench cutting it. A voluntary team, directed by R. H. Hayes, stripped an area 18 by 12 m. The incomplete founda-
tions of a building with a curious apse-like feature (possibly some kind of chimney breast) was revealed, containing
two well-laid hearths of pitched cobbles and two ovens. To the E of the building and curving around its SE side
was a well-made kerbed causeway, 1*5 to 2 m wide. Pottery finds ranged from thirteenth to seventeenth century in
date, including the previously recorded Mailing Maiolica ware and Martincamp flask (see Trans Scarborough and
District Archaeol. Soc. no. 20 (1977), p. 39). Metalwork was plentiful all over the site, including knives, awks, buckles,
horse and bullock shoes, a spur, a bill-hook, strips of lead and a small lead ampulla or pilgrim’s flask. Bones were
numerous including part of a human jaw, a tooth and two femur heads, and bones from 14 different species of
animals. Both oyster and cockleshells were found. A few flints, including a large scraper and a knife flake, were
recovered from the lower clay. A full report is being prepared.

THORPE COMMON, KIRKSTEAD ABBEY GRANGE (SK 383950) This house and the adjacent farm
buildings, together comprising a long range of buildings known last century as ‘Monks’ Smithy Houses’ and
sometimes thought to be of twelfth-century date, was examined by P. F. Ryder and S. R. Jones. The round-headed
single light windows previously described as ‘Norman’ are in fact probably of sixteenth or seventeenth-century
date. Other single-light windows with cusped trefoiled heads look more like genuine later medieval work, but are
not all in situ. The building as it stands is difficult to date, having been much altered c.1900. A moulded ceiling beam
in one bedroom appears to be in situ, and is stylistically of c.1500. The section of the roof which was accessible is
very puzzling, having king post trusses with moulded tie-beams which have been brought from, or were con-
structed for, a timber-framed structure.

WARMSWORTH (SE 551012) Excavation by J. R. Magilton for D.O.E., Doncaster M.B.C. and South York-
shire County Council in Warmsworth, near Doncaster, on the site of St. Peter’s Church in advance of cemetery
landscaping revealed footings of the nineteenth-century structure, demolished 01953, overlying in part the medieval
building. The medieval church was 2-cell, the nave measuring roughly 9-5 by 7*25 m externally with a narrower
chancel 4-75 m wide and 5-5 m long. The footings, consisting of limestone chippings in a foundation trench,
contained fragments of human bone but there was no indication of an earlier building. The chancel was later re-built,
using gypsum mortar. Earth and mortar floors of the early church survived. Finds, including part of the late Norman
grave cover, are lodged in Doncaster Museum.

YORK The York Archaeological Trust, under the direction of P. V. Addyman, has carried out several excavations
and undertaken watching briefs, with the following results.

, (SE 60425168) At Coppergate excavations supervised by R. A. Hall uncovered two cobbled alleys running

back from Coppergate down the slope towards the River Foss. Each was flanked by buildings in the thirteenth and
fourteenth century, mostly timber framed, the principals having rested on padstones over clusters of deeply driven
piles. Several properties possessed barrel-lined wells. A small coin hoard and two ampullae were found. Below the
thirteenth century structures were, in the lower part of the site towards the Foss, deep black deposits, evidently
dumped twelfth century rubbish perhaps deposited to bring the land above the level of the recently dammed Foss.

, (SE 605521) Excavation continued throughout the year at The Bedern under the supervision of M. J. Daniell.

The College of the Vicars Choral was found on both sides of the modern street. To the south-west traces of two
ranges of thirteenth century timber buildings were found beneath the late medieval courtyard building excavated in
1977 ( Register 1977, p. 13). Along the street front was a series of small houses, represented by padstones and stone or
brick sleeper walls for timber superstructures, connected by alleys, passages and small courtyards. North-east of The
Bedern was a more orderly row of similar houses with a substantial stone back wall, beyond which were gardens,
middens and rubbish pits.

During the restoration of Bedern Hall the wall plate of a former cross-range at its south-east end was encountered
and recorded.

, (SE 60585215) Excavation by M. J. Daniells, of a sample burgage plot south east of Aldwark produced a

well-preserved small square late medieval building with alley behind. A passage ran back from Aldwark to divide it
from its neighbour. Such structures apparently represent a typical layout in Aldwark, as tenement boundaries
indicate.

, (SE 609514) A small part of a large development area between Wahngate and Navigation Road was examined

by D. A. Brinklow. A series of structures from the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries, represented by postholes and
timber foundation trenches, were uncovered at theWalmgate front. The property had been used for lead or pewter
working. In the fifteenth century a building on narrow stone foundations was erected on the street front over a
layer of pottery wasters of Humber Basin ware. It continued in use with many modifications into the nineteenth
century. In the area behind a late medieval or Tudor kiln was found, apparently for bricks. (See also Post-Medieval
Section.)

rHE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

POST-MEDIEVAL

EASINGTON, BOULBY ALUM WORKS (NZ 762191) Excavation was continued on this site by S. K.
Chapman for the Cleveland Industrial Archaeology Society ( Register , 1977, p. 17). The large stone warehouse of
the Alum House area, dating from the eighteenth century, has now been turned into a private house. The land
north of this building, containing the shaft to the beach was cleared of debris, uncovering the foundations of boundary
walls leading to the cliff edge. During these operations the outstanding find was an eighteenth-century cannon of
2\ in. bore and nearly 3 ft. long, complete with fork type mounting. This is similar to the small cannon usually
mounted on the bows of sailing ships. At this site it would be used to protect cliff paths to the beach, used by pack
animals, from Dutch privateers.

EAST NEWTON AND LAYSTHORPE (SE 648800) R. H. Hayes reports that Mrs. G. Wood of Harome has
found several post-medieval sherds and other artifacts on the site of a former cottage. Amongst the sherds were a
thick rim, 18 cm diameter, in stony-buff fabric with internal glaze, pieces of seventeenth-eighteenth-century
platters, a rim (possibly from a jug) with external green glaze, and part of a splayed out base. The other finds included
a piece of green glass, some roofing tile, an iron knife, and 6 flints of grey Wold flint, two showing traces of
working.

FARNDALE EAST (SE 660991) A small group of pits, 6 to 8 feet in diameter and 4 to 6 feet in depth, was noted
by R. H. Hayes, W. Best and C. J. Ladley in an intake to the east of Dick Wood at the head of Dike Slack. One
was open and went into a layer of shale. Later J. S. Owen descended this and found that it led to a main tunnel with
side drifts off it, at a depth of 15 to 18 feet below the surface. The funnel, 5 feet high and 4 feet wide, was blocked
by fallen shale and had water flowing through it. Mr. H. Carter, who lived for many years at Menthorpe House
just below the pits, said that they were jet holes (confirmed later by Professor J. E. Hemingway), but did not know
when they had been worked. The Farndale Hunt once lost 3 or 4 of its pack in them, and the huntsman said that
underground drifts occurred all over the intake.

, OAK BECK (SE 651998) In July 1978, R. H. Hayes and J. S. Owen examined three large shale tips

(published on the O.S. 6 inch map as ‘Old Workings’) at the head of Oak Beck, NNE of Lendersfield House.
These, too, are the result of jet working, and an open shaft, waterlogged at 8 to 9 feet down, was noted.

HOOTON LEVITT, MANOR FARM See Medieval section.

HUTTON BUSCEL, MOOR CLOSES (SE 959872) A fragment of a pale blue-green glass bangle with an inlaid
diagonal dark blue and white cord, now in the Grantham Collection, Driffield, was found by C. and E. Grantham
while field walking in the Moor Closes on the E side of the Great Moor Road in the early 1960s. The fragment is
41 mm long, semi-circular in section, 11 mm wide and 7 mm thick, with an internal diameter of about 44 mm.
Another glass bangle was found nearby in 1976 (see Trans Scarborough and Dist. Archaeol. Soc. no. 20 (1977) pp. 43-4)*

KIRKBYMOORSIDE, COWLDYKE (SE 705827) Re-used pieces of cruck blades and a rigg-tree were seen
by B. Frank, curator of the Ryedale Folk Museum, during the demolition of a barn and wheelshed. A stone from
the barn was dated 1793. R. H. Hayes equates Cowldyke with the COLDIC of a Rievaulx Abbey Charter of
1154-62.

LASTINGHAM, HIGH ASKEW (SE 74749152) Re-used pieces of cruck blades and rigg-trees were noted, by
R. H. Hayes and others, in a sheep-house built on the site of the earlier High Askew farmhouse (the present farm-
house was built after 1853).

, MIDDLE ASKEW (SE 74459077) The site of Middle Askew (shown as a farmhouse with a barn and an

orchard on the O.S. 6-inch map of 1853) was examined by R. H. Hayes and Mrs. M. K. Allison. Only the wall
footings of the house, the north gable wall of the barn and some of the trees in the orchard survive. The house,
with walls o-6 to o-8 m thick, measured 12 m in length by 5 m in width and was possibly of four bays with an
outshut to the west.

LOFTUS (NZ 73801947) D. J. Brooke and D. Smith saw the upper stone of a beehive quern lying on a wall on
the east side of the footpath from Upton to Gallihowe. It is nf inches in diameter and 7^ inches high, with a
funnel-shaped hopper 5! inches in diameter and 2§ inches deep, and two opposing handle holes. Now in the
possession of Mr. W. Garbutt of Street Houses Farm.

MIRFIELD, LOWER HOPTON (SE 19871946) D. J. H. Michelmore reports that the Medieval Section of the
Y.A.S. recorded Chadwick Hall, which has now been demolished. This proved to be a sixteenth-century H plan
house with stone outer walls but timber-framed gables. The internal king-post trusses had vertical studs, but the
external gables in the cross-wings had herring-bone studding. The hall had originally been open, heated by a
timber-framed fire-hood backing onto a half-height stone reredos wall, behind which ran the cross-passage. In the
angle between the N wall of the hall and the western cross-wing a turret may originally have contained a staircase
or a garderobe. The upper floors of the cross-wings appear to have been linked by a gallery built against the N wall
of the hall, removed when a floor had been inserted in the hall. The western cross-wing was divided on both the
ground and the first floor; this wing was divided from the hall by a stone wall at ground-floor level but by a timber-
framed partition above. Examination of this cross-wing was restricted, due to the dangerous condition of the
structure.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REGISTER: 1 978

PENISTONE, HORNTHWAITE CRUCK BARN (SE 235033) A four-bay cruck barn was inspected and
recorded by P. F. Ryder, in view of the uncertainty of its future. The barn has had stone walls from the first, and
this with other features must date it very late in the local tradition of cruck framing. The quality of timber used is
very poor, and the standard of the carpentry is little better. A mixture of the conventional cruck halvings and
mortice-and-tenon joints have been used, the latter so inexpertly that the majority have failed and have had to be
repaired using iron stanchions. In contrast, a small stone building attached to the N end of the barn, probably
contemporary, has quite refined detailing in its mullioned window and door. One of the timbers in the barn bears
a ‘1759’ inscription which might date its construction.

, SCHOLE HILL FARMHOUSE See Medieval section.

ROCKLEY, ROCKLEY FURNACE (SE 338021) D. W. Crossley excavated for Sheffield Trades Historical
Society and D.O.E. at the blast furnace built in 1652. The bellows-house and water wheel were found to be on the
N side of the surviving furnace structure, with the casting area on the W side. The casting floor contained a stone-
lined casting pit, rather than the pig-beds inferred from documentary sources. Further work is planned, to determine
the purpose of the E furnace arch.

ROSEDALE EAST, REEKING GILL (NZ 69300085) R. W. Brown and D. Smith noted two rough-out
millstones, both measuring 1 m in diameter and 0-15 to 0-2 m in thickness, at the head of the valley of Reeking
Gill on the area damaged by a severe moorland fire in 1976.

ROSEDALE EAST, ROSEDALE HEAD (NZ 686006) D. Smith and C. J. Ladley identified and surveyed a
railway navvies’ temporary encampment situated on a S W facing slope, below the Rosedale East Branch, between
Castle Crag and Green Head Brow. The turf-built foundations of seven buildings were noted, six measuring
28 by 5 m with central divisions and the seventh 12 by 5 m. Construction of the Rosedale East Branch was begun
in 1864 and the line was opened on August 18, 1865 (see Rosedale Mines and Railway, Scarborough and Dist.
Archaeol. Soc. Research Report No. 9 (1974), pp. 21-2), so this encampment would have been occupied within
that period.

ROTHERHAM, THE OLD THREE CRANES See Medieval section.

SHEFFIELD, SHEFFIELD MANOR (SK 375865) A further season of excavation by Miss P. Beswick, for
Sheffield City Museums, clarified the building sequence at the critical junction of the W front and the EW cross-
wings. The earliest structures lie on a similar E-W axis to the later cross-wing, and pre-date the ‘long gallery’ and
Wolsey Tower of the early sixteenth century. The cross-wing was built subsequent to the addition of the southern
half of the west wing with its imposing entrance. Seven building phases have been recognised; none can be securely
dated, but the final four probably all fall within the sixteenth century, and represent the conversion of the hunting
lodge to a substantial manor house.

SNILES WORTH, WHEAT BECK (SE 50429465) R. H. Hayes and W. Best noted an iron slag heap, approxi-
mately 3 m by 2 m and 1*2 m high, on the N bank of Wheat Beck.

THORNTON RISEBOROUGH, ORCHARD HILL See Medieval section.

THORPE COMMON, KIRKSTEAD ABBEY GRANGE See Medieval section.

, NETHERFIELD FARMHOUSE See Medieval section.

TICKHILL, THE FRIARY See Medieval section.

WESTERDALE, BLACK HAGG BECK (NZ 62210327) R. S. Close showed R. H. Hayes a site on the NE
bank of Black Hagg Beck where he thought an attempt had been made to smelt iron using the local moor coal.
At the SE end of the spoil heap from an old coal bell-pit was a semi-circular stone-built hearth, 2 m in diameter,
with a surround of rough local sandstone, 2 to 3 courses deep and up to 0-55 m high, on its N and NE sides, and
a flagged base. Some stones on the NE and E sides appeared to be the first course of a corbelled dome. Limited
clearing revealed that the surround and hearth floor were burnt, and much coal, rubble and shale and many pieces
of iron ore, but no iron slag, lay on the floor. It was apparent that the stones of the surround were mortared together.
The hearth is unique, so far, as an attempt to roast iron ore at a date long after the medieval smelting period.

At NZ 61980342, 270 m north-west of the site, near Armouth Wath, are the ruins of a row of four small cottages,
now used as sheep-folds. Mr. Close said that they were reputed to have been used by coal-miners in the late
eighteenth-early nineteenth-century, and that a ruin to the W of them, on the N bank of Rowantree Gill, was a
smithy. This building measures 8-7 by 5 m, and has a stone trough at its NE end.

WHISTON, GUILTHWAITE GRANGE (SK 451890) Remains of two timber-framed structures are incor-
porated in a range of farm buildings, and these were inspected and recorded by P. F. Ryder of the South Yorkshire
County Archaeological Unit and S. R. Jones. The western structure has been a two-bay building, probably a barn,
and the eastern a house, one bay of the hall block and one bay of the cross-wing at its west end surviving. The hall
block had been open to the roof, and a window looked down into it from the first floor of the cross-wing. The
roofs of both buildings had been reconstructed, re-using several collared common rafters. A section of the wall-plate
of the cross- wing was dated dendrochronologically to I597ff;9 years.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

YORK The York Archaeological Trust, under the direction of P. V. Addyman, excavated the following sites and
structures.

, (SE605521) Post-medieval levels, including two inserted semi-cellars, were encountered during preliminary

clearance under M. J. Daniells of houses of the College of the Vicars Choral north-east of The Bedern. (See Medieval
section.)

, (SE 609514) Below the remains of nineteenth century tenements in Walmgate a late medieval building with

narrow stone walls was encountered in excavations under D. A. Brinklow. It had remained in use with constant
modification throughout post-medieval times. In areas behind was a late medieval or Tudor kiln, apparently for
bricks, and later the area was occupied by numerous shallow rectangular flat bottomed pits, lined with clay and
planks. Rubbish pits nearby contained quantities of sheep forelimb bones. These, together with lime pits and wells
indicated a flourishing post-medieval skin works for sheepskins or parchment.

MISCELLANEOUS

BOULBY (NZ 735192) Dr. D. A. Spratt reports that Dr. A. K. Lamballe discovered a hemispherical top stone
from a quern in i960; height 18 cm, base diam. 30-5 cm, hopper diarn. 13 cm, feed hole diain. 2-5 cm, with two
opposed handle holes. The quern is made from pink Millstone Grit from the Ripon area.

CARLETON (SD 968496) Miss E. M. Holt reports that the boundary leading north from Mill Hill Farm is a
straight bank about 2 m across and perhaps I m high on the downward side, retained by a later wall. A similar bank
lies to the north of Limehouse Lane at SD 978498, surmounted by a recent wall.

, (SD 95014966) Miss E. M. Holt and J. Guy report a square earthwork with rounded corners at Yellison

House. A visit by H. G. Ramm confirmed a platform much eroded c.o-6 m high and c. 24 m square with rounded
corners, surrounded by a ditch.

FERRENSBY (centred 370615) Miss E. M. Holt reports two straight parallel banks about 2 m across on the NW
boundary of Loftus Hill estate, near a pond with a pavement. An ill-defined bank with a rounded corner, overlain
by ridge and furrow, lay to the S of the house.

GIGGLESWICK (SD 807638) T. C. Welsh reports a circular enclosure and earthworks on a shelf of ground,
W of a track, cut by a wall and footpath delimiting the area surrounding Giggleswick School Church. A low bank,
up to 5 m broad, encloses a circular area 23 to 25 m across. On slopes WSW are minor earthworks, including a
terrace 16 m square, with banks and a ditch on two sides. There are features in line to the ENE.

GISBURN FOREST (SD 760591) S. W. Feather reports a millstone working site at Whelp Stone Crag.

GISBURN, PAYTHORNE (centred on SD 822517) Miss E. M. Holt, J. Guy and G. Crowther report a number
of banks and ditches at Loftrans Farm, in one instance interrupted by ridge and furrow. These were roughly 2 m
across, well defined and extended over a large area. They did not appear to conform with later enclosure.

KIRKBYMOORSIDE, HIGH HAGG FARM (area centred 680879) Air photographs taken by A. L. Pacitto in
1976 indicate a large rectangular ditched enclosure with a smaller rectangular enclosure inside it in the area of High
Hagg Farm. R. H. Hayes and G. W. Goodall walked over the site in 1976 and found 3 or 4 medieval sherds, a
possible Romano-British sherd and 2 oyster shells. Other Romano-British sherds were found at Hagg Nook
(SE 680876) by the late Mr. C. Potter in the period 1939-46.

KIRKLEATHAM (NZ 594220) Dr. D. A. Spratt reports that Mr. Lockhart discovered the top of a beehive quern
in i960. The stone, now mislaid, is described as hemispherical with two opposed handle holes.

LIVERTON (NZ 718132) Mrs. S. Crowther and Dr. D. A. Spratt report two ditched enclosures 350 m SE of
Lane Head Farm. One is rectangular, 25 by 32 m, and complete on all sides. The other, 32 by 54 m is easily visible
on two sides as substantial banks with external ditches, but the S and E sides are barely discernable as ditches. The
enclosures, near an ancient moorland trackway, are similar to one nearby at Girrick Moor (NZ 7041 19), also
undated.

PORT MULGRAVE (NZ 792177) Dr. D. A. Spratt reports that Mr. Barker found a hemispherical top stone
from a quern; height 15 cm, base diarn. 29 cm, hopper diam. 9 cm, feed hole diam. 2-5 cm with two opposed
handles. The quern, made from Crinoid Grit, is in Hinderwell Church.

SHEFFIELD, BURBAGE BROOK (SK 266817) T. C. Welsh reports a bloomery site of unknown date, lying in
an area of slag mounds. A hearth, internally 1-5 by 1-9 m, is set against the N side of a large rock. A piece of slag,
with low iron content and weighing 5 lb., from one of the mounds has been deposited at Weston Park Museum,
Sheffield. Traces of several shallow hearths in a level area lie 45 m to the SE.

SILSDEN (centred at SE 079465) S. W. Feather reports an area of millstone and grinding stone working sites at
Doubler Stones Allotment.

THE YORKSEIIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REGISTER: 1978

SWAINBY (NZ 468011) R. Inman reports the top stone of a beehive quern of Millstone Grit in the garden of
Scarth Lees Farm. It is conical in shape, damaged at the top, height 7 ins., diam. at top 10 ins, diam. at base 12 ins.
It has an obliquely cut hopper hole diam. 1^ ins., and two opposed handle holes diam. 1^ ins, depth 2 ins, all accur-
ately cut as though with a rotary drill. The base is concave and worn smooth in patches. Retained by the owner,
Mr. M. Bell.

WEST BARNBY (NZ 823132) Dr. D. A. Spratt reports that Mr. Richardson, of High Farm, West Barnby, has
ploughed up a complete beehive quern. The top stone is hemispherical, 15 cm high, base diam. 30 cm, hopper
diam. 10 cm, feed hole diam. 2 cm, with two opposed handle holes, rectangular in section 2 by 2*5 cm. The bottom
stone was a sandstone disc, flat on both sides, top diam. 25 cm, bottom diam. 35 cm, height 14 cm. There were
central holes in both faces, 2-5 cm diam., and two opposed shallow impressions in the normal positions of handle
holes, suggesting that it may have been intended for a top stone. Both stones were of local Channel Sandstone.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

ARCHAEOLOGY AND PALAEOBOTANY
ON THE NORTH YORK MOORS AND

THEIR ENVIRONS

By R. L. Jones, P. R. Cundill and I. G. Simmons

Summary Pollen analysis of peat deposits supports Dimbleby’s view that the vegetation of the North York Moors
is due to human interference against Elgee’s claim that it was entirely natural. Mesolithic hunters first affected the
original woodland cover. A major clearance of woods in the Bronze Age was followed after some regeneration by
wholesale clearance of trees in the Iron Age and Romano-British period and their replacement by heather and
grass with evidence of arable and pastoral farming.

Introduction

It is now sixty-seven years since Elgee1 asserted that the contemporary vegetation of the
North York Moors was a pre-glacial survival and hence entirely natural, and eighteen years
after Dimbleby2 suggested that the high moorlands of the locality, which he called by their
ancient name of ‘Blackamore’, were a region where the vegetation was, by contrast, the
product of the activities of man over the past eight thousand years. Dimbleby was the first
person to utilise the presence of fossil remains of plants, mainly pollen, preserved in soils
and peats in order to examine the relationships between ecological change and archaeo-
logical evidence. Earlier, the work of Erdtman3 had established a general ecological history
of the moors although this was to some extent contrary to the interpretation of the
archaeological evidence produced at the same time by Elgee4 and it was not until the
published researches of Dimbleby5 that an adequate link between archaeology and ecological
history was forged. In his paper of 1961 in Antiquity , Dimbleby, principally using evidence
from the pollen analysis of soils, overlying shallow peats, and buried soils at archaeological
sites like Burton Howes (Bronze Age barrows) and White Gill (a Mesolithic flint site)
attempted to show how prehistoric societies had affected the vegetation. Since that date a
great deal of further research on the Quaternary deposits of the North York M oors has been
carried out and the present paper is an attempt to amplify and reappraise ideas expressed in
pre-1963 papers in the light of this new evidence.

Recent research has concentrated on palaeobotanical analysis of the various organic
remains on the high ground of Blackamore and in the adjacent lowland areas. Peat deposits
of varying depths are found in ‘swangs’ or ‘slacks’ at various altitudes and in lowland
hollows, as well as covering large areas of the plateau-like summits of Blackamore. The
analysis of these peats, while encompassing a wider programme of investigations in historical
ecology, retained the main aim of Dimbleby in attempting to link the history of vegetation
in the area with the activities of historic and prehistoric man, although only one or two of
the new sites had direct links with archaeological remains. This has meant that a close
relationship between archaeological inferences and ecological history cannot be demons-
trated without the aid of radiocarbon dates except in certain favourable circumstances.

1 F. Elgee, The Moorlands of North-East Yorkshire (Hull, 1912). Subsequently referred to as Elgee, 1912.

2 G. W. Dimbleby, The ancient forest of Blackamore, Antiquity 35 (1961), pp. 123-8. Subsequently referred to
as Dimbleby, 1961.

3 G. Erdtman, ‘The peat deposits of the Cleveland Hills’, Naturalist (1927), pp. 39-47. Subsequently referred to as
Erdtman, 1927; ‘Studies in the post-Arctic history of the forests of North-west Europe. 1. Investigations in the
British Isles’, Geol. For. Stockh. Forh. 50 (1928), pp. 123-92. Subsequently referred to as Erdtman, 1928.

4 F. Elgee, Early Man in North-East Yorkshire (Gloucester, 1930). Subsequently referred to as Elgee, 1930.

6 G. W. Dimbleby, ‘The historical status of moorland in north-east Yorkshire’, New Phytol 51 (1952), pp. 349-54;
Dimbleby, 1961; and The Development of British Heathlands and their Soils, Oxford Forestry Memoirs 23 (1962).
Subsequently referred to as Dimbleby, 1962.

1 6

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Detailed results of the present research can be found elsewhere, in papers by Simmons,6
Cundill,7Jones,8 Atherden,9 Simmons and Cundill,10 Spratt and Simmons,* 11 and Simmons,
Atherden, Cundill and Jones.12

The main technique used in examining the deposits was that of pollen analysis. Detailed
discussion of the principles, methods and problems of pollen analysis are outside the scope
of this paper and can be found in Faegri’s book.13 In addition, an outline of the development
of British vegetation over the last ten thousand years is provided by Godwin.14 Pollen
analysis of peat probably yields pollen spectra which have a larger regional component than
soil pollen analyses, whose grains are largely derived from local sources. This difference
must be allowed for in comparing work based on soil pollen with that of peat. Figure i is a
summary table containing general detail for many sites, situations and time periods referred
to in the ensuing discussion. Radiocarbon dates are expressed in years bp (before 1950) and
are uncalibrated.

Vegetation and Mesolithic Man

On the lowland areas within and adjacent to the North York Moors there are indications
of early Mesolithic activities, dating back to the beginning of the Flandrian (post-glacial)
time period, which extends from c. 10,000 years bp to the present day (Fig. 1). One of these
is the classic site at Star Carr investigated by Clark.15 Here the settlement has been dated by
radiocarbon analysis to 9488^:^09 bp which falls within the earliest part of the Flandrian.
Pollen analysis indicates that the area surrounding the settlement was covered by well
developed birch woodland which was little affected by the activities of these Maglemosian
peoples.

The other sites are not settlements like Star Carr, and some are not even directly connected
with archaeological finds, but those discussed by Jones16 reveal much about environmental
conditions and indicate the effects that man had on the vegetation up until the end of the

6 I. G. Simmons, ‘Pollen diagrams from the North York Moors’, New Phytol. (1969), pp. 807-27. Subsequently
referred to as Simmons, 1969a.

7 P. R. Cundill, Ecological History and the Development of Peat on the Central Watershed of the North York Moors
(Ph.D. thesis, University of Durham, 1971). Subsequently referred to as Cundill, 1971.

8 R. L. Jones, A Contribution to the Late Quaternary Ecological History of Cleveland, North-East Yorkshire (Ph.D.
thesis, University of Durham, 1971). Subsequently referred to as Jones, 1971; ‘The activities of Mesolithic man:
further palaeobotanical evidence from north-east Yorkshire’, in (ed) D. A. Davidson and M. L. Shackley, Geo-
archaeology: Earth Science and the Past (London, 197 6), pp. 355-67. Subsequently referred to as Jones, 1976a; ‘Late
Quaternary vegetational history of the North York Moors. 4. Seamer Carrs’, J. Biogeogr. 3 (1976), pp. 397-406.
Subsequently referred to as Jones, 1976b: ‘Late Quaternary vegetational history of the North York Moors. 5. The
Cleveland Dales’,/. Biogeogr. 4 (1977), pp. 353-62. Subsequently referred to as Jones, 1977; ‘Late Quaternary vegeta-
tional history of the North York Moors. 6. The Cleveland Moors’,/. Biogeogr. 5 (1978), pp. 81-92. Subsequently
referred to as Jones, 1978.

9 M. A. Atherden, The Influence of Prehistoric Cultures on the Vegetation and Land Use of the Eastern-Central North
York Moors (Ph.D. thesis, University of Durham, 1972). Subsequently referred to as Atherden, 1972; ‘Late Quater-
nary vegetational history of the North York Moors. 3. Fen Bogs’,/. Biogeogr. 3 (1976), pp. 115-24. Subsequently
referred to as Atherden, 1976a; ‘The impact of late prehistoric cultures on the vegetation of the North York Moors’,
Trans. Inst. Brit. Geogr. 1 (1976), pp. 284-300. Subsequently referred to as Atherden, 1976b.

10 I. G. Simmons and P. R. Cundill, ‘Vegetation history during the Mesolithic in north-east Yorkshire’, Y.A.J.
62 (1969), pp. 324-6; ‘Late Quaternary vegetational history of the North York Moors. 1. Pollen analyses of blanket
peats’,/. Biogeogr. I (1974), pp. 159-69. Subsequently referred to as Simmons and Cundill, 1974a; ‘Late Quaternary
vegetational history of the North York Moors. 2. Pollen analyses of landslip bogs’,/. Biogeogr. 1 (1974), pp. 253-61.
Subsequently referred to as Simmons and Cundill, 1974b.

11 D. A. Spratt, and I. G. Simmons, ‘Prehistoric activity and environment on the North York Moors’,/. Archaeol.
Sci. 3 (1976), pp. 193-210. Subsequently referred to as Spratt and Simmons, 1976.

12 I. G. Simmons, M. A. Atherden, P. R. Cundill, and R. L. Jones. ‘Inorganic layers in soligenious mires of the
North Yorkshire Moors’,/. Biogeogr. 2 (1975), pp. 49-56. Subsequently referred to as Sinnnons, Atherden, Cundill
and Jones, 1975.

13 K. Faegri, Textbook of Pollen Analysis (Oxford, 1975), 3rd Edn.

14 FI. Godwin, The History of the British Flora (Cambridge, 1975), 2nd Edn. Subsequently referred to as Godwin,
1975.

16 J. G. D. Clark, Excavations at Star Carr (Cambridge, 1971), 2nd Edn.

10 Jones, 1971 and 1976a.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND PALAEOBOTANY ON THE NORTH YORK MOORS AND THEIR ENVIRONS

Boreal period (Flandrian 1) about seven thousand years ago. At one of these sites near
Kildale Hall, close to a locality from which Cameron17 recorded remains of red deer and
reindeer, bones of aurochs have been discovered. Peat encasing these has yielded a radio-
carbon date of 10,350^200 bp, contains substantial quantities of silt and charcoal, and shows
in its pollen spectra the presence of early Flandrian vegetation. The landscape was dominated
by heath with scattered birch woods, later to be replaced by a more complete pine-hazel
forest. The presence of the bones in a swamp surrounding a small lake and accompanied
stratigraphically by charcoal suggests that human activity was disturbing this area at about
the same time as that of the Star Carr settlement.

ENGLAND AND WALES

NORTH YORK MOORS AND ENVIRONS

STAGE

FIS

z ~

1 .

' z y

< H-

-1 in
o

Fin

FI 1

PERIOD

SUB-ATLANTIC

SUB-BOREAL

ATLANTIC

BOREAL

PRE-BOREAL

C Age

bc/ad

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

POLLEN

ZONE

14,

b p

390

1060

1530

SUb

2280

3210

3400

3886

PALAEOBOTANY

LOWLANDS | ~~~~UPLAN0S~

ARCHAEOLOGY

PASTURELAND
WOODLAND AND
SCRUB

HEATH

4700

2Ha

6650

10 350

BIRCH

HAZEL

OAK

ALDER

ELM

LI ME

ASH

BEECH

-SI

2. o
o "S
2 -o

MEDIEVAL

NORMAN

SCANDINAVIAN

ANGLO-SAXON

ROMA NO- BRITISH

IRON AGE

1/1

- £

Jt. TS

ELM DECLINE

OAK

ALDER

BIRCH

ELM

LIME

SOME HEATH

BIRCH

OAK

ALDER

ELM

OAK

PINE

OAK

HAZEL

LI ME

ELM

OAK

SOME HEATH
AND SCRUB

OPEN BIRCH/HAZEL
WOODLAND

t-*

CLOSED BIRCH
FOREST

OPEN BIRCH SCRUB
WITH HEATH

BRONZE AGE

NEOLITHIC

MESOLITHIC

Fig. 1. Comparative Summary Table of Chronological, Palaeobotanical

and Archaeological Evidence.

17 A. G. Cameron, ‘Notes on some peat deposits at Kildale and West Hartlepool’, Geol. Mag. 5 (1878), pp. 351-2.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

From West House Moss and Ewe Crag Slack, Jones18 presents a pollen record for early
Flandrian time which also indicates an incomplete tree and shrub cover until later Boreal
time (Flandrian I) when a predominantly coniferous forest emerged. Temporary changes in
the composition of this forest was revealed at both sites where small declines in tree pollen
are accompanied by increases in those of shrubs and certain herbaceous types. At Ewe Crag
Slack a silt layer containing charcoal and showing at the same level fluctuations in the pollen
record is found in peat of Boreal (Flandrian I) age, and is used by Simmons et al 19 as further
evidence of man-induced disturbance of the environment, while at West House a radio-
carbon date of 6650T290 bp post-dates such events.

There is little evidence of environmental conditions on the higher parts of Blackamore
during the Pre-Boreal and Boreal (Flandrian I) because very little of the peat dates to these
times. There may be a few indications from hill peats of late Boreal (Flandrian I) age that the
woodland on the higher parts of the moors was not a closed canopy at this stage. High
percentages of hazel pollen suggests that this shrub was extensive under relatively open
stands of pine and records of open habitat species such as plantain reinforce the view of a
fairly open woodland; though occasional single weed pollens can scarcely be considered
reliable indicators of the presence of man.

During the next convenient time span, the Atlantic period (Flandrian II), the archaeo-
logical evidence for Mesolithic man shifts from lowland and coastal areas to the uplands of
the North York Moors. The evidence encompasses Dimbleby’s site at White Gill and the
large number of finds of flints of later Mesolithic ( sensu Mellars20) character scattered across
the uplands are discussed by Radley21 and Brown, Goddard and Spratt.22 Pollen analytical
evidence from blanket and slack peats of Atlantic age (Flandrian II) indicates that man was
disturbing the vegetation cover. Most of the evidence is in the form of persistent finds of
the pollen of ruderal plants such as sorrel, mugwort and cow-wheat, coupled with numerous
instances of charcoal and silt within peat deposits. This suggests that man was using fire,
which modified the vegetation, encouraged the growth of plants of open habitats and
initiated soil erosion. From the site at North Gill, Simmons23 exemplifies this; a band of
charcoal at the base of the peat profile is associated with a reduction in tree and shrub pollen
and the appearance of ruderal types. At Ewe Crag Slack, Jones24 describes pollen spectra
from peat containing silt layers with charcoal of Atlantic (Flandrian II) age which show
declines in tree pollens and increases in those of shrubs and herbs.

Although this evidence indicates that man used fire, the composition of the woodland
does not appear to have changed radically during the Atlantic, with the exception of the
increase in the amount of hazel. This shrub would have provided more browse for herbi-
vorous mammals as well as a source of direct nutrition in the form of nuts. However, the
replacement of forest by grassland and scrub may have led to the initiation of blanket bog
growth, which Simmons25 regards as being an anthropogenic phenomenon in some places.

In the light of the evidence now available, Dimbleby’s26 conclusion that the Atlantic
woodlands were disturbed by Mesolithic man is borne out. The more data that become

18 Jones, 1971 and 1976a.

19 Simmons, Atherden, Cundill and Jones, 1975.

20 P.A. Mellars, ‘The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic’, in (ed) C. Renfrew, British Prehistory: a new outline (London,
1974), pp. 41-99-

21 J. Radley, ‘The Mesolithic period in north-east Yorkshire’, Y.A.J. 42 (1969), pp. 314-24. Subsequently referred
to as Radley, 1969.

22 D. R. Brown, R. E. Goddard, and D. A. Spratt, ‘Mesolithic settlement sites at Upleatham, North Riding’,
Y.A.J. 48 (1976), pp. 19-26.

23 I. G. Simmons, 1969a; ‘Evidence for vegetation changes associated with Mesolithic man in Britain’, in (ed)
P. J. Ucko and G. W. Dimbleby, The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals (London, 1969), pp. 1 1 1-19.

24 Jones, 1978.

25 I. G. Simmons, ‘Towards an ecology of Mesolithic man in the uplands of Great Britain’, J. Archaeol. Sci. 2
(1975), PP- 1-1 5 ; ‘The ecological setting of Mesolithic man in the Highland Zone’, in (ed) J. G. Evans, The Effect of
Man on the Landscape: the Highland Zone, CBA Research Report No. n (London, 1975), pp. 57-63.

26 Dimbleby, 1961.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND PALAEOBOTANY ON THE NORTH YORK MOORS AND THEIR ENVIRONS 1 9

available, the more widespread it appears that Mesolithic man affected the vegetation of the
moors. Dimbleby also concluded that the whole of Blackamore was wooded during
Mesolithic times and this is in general supported by more recent research, although the
extent and composition of woodland is open to question. The more recent pollen evidence
has been interpreted as indicating a mosaic of woodland and scrub with openings created by
man. This mixture may have attracted more animals for browsing and in turn attracted
man for hunting purposes. It is envisaged that any such set of plant communities would have
been confined to the higher parts of Blackamore while lower reaches would have supported
a closed canopy high forest much less attractive for browsing animals and hence to their
hunters.

At the end of the Atlantic (around the Flandrian II/III boundary) there begin classic
changes in woodland vegetation which can be recognised in pollen diagrams from widely
separated areas of north-west Europe. The main change which occurs is the marked reduc-
tion in the amount of elm pollen, hence the naming of the vegetation change as the elm-
decline by Godwin27 and others. It is a feature which can be seen in the North York Moors
diagrams, where the blanket peat sites show the clearest declines. There is also a reduction in
other woodland types, and an increase in non-tree pollens such as those of grasses, heath
plants and weeds. Many reasons have been put forward to account for the elm-decline
including climatic change by Frenzel,28 disease and anthropogenic causes by Iversen29 and by
Troels-Smith.30 Because of connections with artifacts, the elm-decline, dated widely by
radiocarbon to r.5000 bp has been clearly associated with the farming cultures of the
Neolithic. Such a date for the elm-decline can be accepted for the North York Moors,
particularly as the pollen evidence is supported by radiocarbon dates of 4767 d=6o bp at
North Gill and 4720^:90 bp at Fen Bogs, the latter reported by Atherden.31 Somewhat
anomalously, a clear decline is not seen in the diagrams from lower altitudes where the
majority of Neolithic remains have so far been located. It could be argued that the elm-
decline is more logically linked with the activities of terminal Mesolithic rather than
Neolithic man, especially as there is a series of small forest clearances just before the elm-
decline. There have been hypotheses by Dimbleby32 and Radley33 that Mesolithic man was
not immediately replaced by a Neolithic counterpart at the time of the elm-decline and that
he managed to survive in certain areas, particularly the uplands, well into Neolithic and
perhaps even into Bronze Age times. This line of reasoning, however, poses as many
questions as it answers and at the present time there is no direct supporting evidence.
Cereals are not represented in the immediately post elm-decline pollen records from the
North York Moors; clearances at this time were mainly temporary, either for pastoral
farming, as aids in hunting, or contained cereals whose pollen was very little disseminated.
A regeneration phase of woodland following one such event has been dated by Simmons34
to 38861b 79 bp at Collier Gill.

The First Major Clearances of Woodland

The pollen diagrams from the North York Moors which encompass the period between
the elm-decline and the present day (Flandrian III) demonstrate clearly the impact of man
upon the vegetation cover. This is manifest as substantial reductions in tree and shrub pollen

27 Godwin, 1975.

28 B. Frenzel, ‘Climatic change in the Atlantic/Sub-boreal transition of the northern hemisphere: botanical
evidence’, in J. S. Saywer (ed), World Climate from 8000 to 0 B.C. Royal Meterological Society (London, 1966),
pp. 89-123.

29 J. Iversen, ‘Landnam i Danmarks Stenalder’. Damn. Geol. Unders. Ser 2, 66 (1941), pp. 1-68.

30 J. Troels-Smith, ‘Ivy, mistletoe and elm: climatic indicators, fodder plants’, Damn. Geol. Unders. Ser 4, 4 (1960),
pp. 1-32.

31 Atherden, 1976a and 1976b.

32 Dimbleby, 1962.

33 Radley, 1969.

34 Simmons, 1969a.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

values, marked and consistent increases in heathland and ruderal species, and in the con-
tinuous presence of bracken and other fern spores. In addition the frequency of finds of
charcoal and silt within the sediments is greater, lending support to ideas of widespread and
lasting ecological changes in the landscape at the hands of men, as suggested by Dimbleby.35

The degree to which woodland clearance took place and the number of recognisably
distinct phases of activity recorded serves to divide up the pollen diagrams and makes for the
variations between them. Two major phases of woodland clearance are recognised, set
within a background which shows a general reduction in forest cover and increasing
amounts of open landscape, together with a gradual deterioration in soils over the past five
thousand years. The pollen records from lowland sites in north-east Yorkshire do not
exhibit such marked changes as do those from the upland areas of Blackamore as Simmons,36
Cundill, 37 Jones38 and Simmons and Cundill39 demonstrate. The first significant phase of
woodland clearance is seen in the pollen diagrams from the uplands areas, and occurs soon
after the elm-decline. It is indicated by a marked decline in tree and shrub pollen and has
been recognised from a large number of blanket peat sites by Simmons and Cundill.40
Cereal pollen occurs during the clearance phase and in addition there is a drastic decline in
the value of lime pollen; examples from elsewhere of this latter phenomenon being referred
by Turner41 to the activities of man. Less distinct though positive evidence of woodland
clearance has been traced by Simmons42 .and jones43 at Ladybridge Slack and Ewe Crag
Slack respectively. A major interference with the environment is apparent. The first culture
to have made a significant impact on the landscape at this time was that of the Bronze Age
according to Elgee,44 Dimbleby45 and Fleming.46 Such activity is correlated with this first,
major woodland clearance phase. Simmons47 suggested that the clearance could be linked
with the middle Bronze Age, remains of which are abundant on the upper areas of Blacka-
more, although Atherden48 is inclined to place less emphasis upon this hypothesis. Radio-
carbon dates of 3400A90 bp and 2280T120 bp from Fen Bogs span Bronze Age time in the
region and are supported by an assay of 3120T90 bp at Wheeldale Gill from Simmons and
Cundill.49

Although none of the recent research has studied the buried soils beneath Bronze Age
barrows, Dimbleby50 concentrated on this aspect and showed that there was a change from
wooded to open conditions in the time taken to build and then enlarge the barrows at
Burton Howes. While the peat sites do not allow such a direct link with the construction of
Bronze Age earthworks, several of them are close to such features (e.g. Loose Howe on
Glaisdale Moor). Thus on the pollen diagrams it can be seen that a gradual clearance of
woodland took place at such sites, followed by a period of agriculture including some cereal
crop growing and ending with a period of woodland regeneration in which trees and

35 Dimbleby, 1962.

36 Simmons, 1969a.

37 Cundill, 1971.

38 Jones, 1971, 1976b and 1978.

39 Simmons and Cundill, 1974a and 1974b.

40 Simmons, 1969a, Cundill, 1971 and Simmons and Cundill, 1974a.

41 J. Turner, ‘The Tilia decline: an anthropogenic interpretation’, New Phytol 61 (1962), pp. 328-41; ‘A contribu-
tion to the history of forest clearance’, Proc. Roy. Soc. B 161 (1965), pp. 343-54; ‘Post-Neolithic disturbance of
British Vegetation’, in (eds) D. Walker and R. G. West, Studies in the Vegetational History of the British Isles (Cam-
bridge, 1970), pp. 97-116.

42 Simmons, 1969a.

43 Jones, 1971 and 1978.

44 Elgee, 1930.

45 Dimbleby, 1962.

46 A. Fleming, ‘Bronze Age agriculture on the marginal lands of north-east Yorkshire’, Agr. Hist. Rev. 19 (1971),
pp. 1-24.

47 Simmons, 1969a.

48 Atherden, 1976a and 1976b.

49 Simmons and Cundill, 1974a.

60 Dimbleby, 1961 and 1962.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND PALAEOBOTANY ON THE NORTH YORK MOORS AND THEIR ENVIRONS

shrubs, partially at least, started to cover the site. Woodland is likely to have been cleared
for crop growing in the first instance, but with quick exhaustion of the soils this was
replaced by pastoral activity. There is thus little argument amongst authors that the Bronze
Age clearances were both substantial and sustained, leaving a permanent mark upon the
landscape of the North York Moors. At this time, the area of blanket bog, although
considerably shallower and covering a smaller area than at the present day, must have
constituted an unattractive proposition for agriculture or habitation and its build-up and
extension was probably assisted by woodland reduction and subsequent soil degeneration.
When woodland is being destroyed, soils become much more susceptible to the effects of
runoff or percolation of rainwater. This may lead to more rapid leaching or soil erosion.
Simmons et al51 suggested that the silt layers encountered in Sub-Boreal (Flandrian III)
peats at a number of sites in the region were almost certainly the result of such developments.

The Final Stages of Woodland Removal

Dimbleby52 did not discuss changes in vegetation which occurred after the Bronze Age
as the peat and buried soils which he examined had temporally limited pollen records, but
the study of the peat deposits on and around the moors has resulted in the ecological history
of the area being known up to the present day. After the period in which there was some
woodland regeneration following the Bronze Age clearance phases, there was yet another
and far more dramatic removal of woodland. Trees almost completely disappeared and
were replaced mainly by heather moorland and acid grassland. Both arable and pastoral
farming appear to have been carried out: abundant and consistent records of species such as
mugwort, cornflower and fat hen indicative of cultivation practices, and grasses, plantain
and sorrel closely linked with grazing activity, are found in the deposits. Archaeological
records, noted by Spratt and Simmons53 and palaeobotanical evidence, including a radio-
carbon date of 1530^130 bp for its termination, presented by Atherden,54 correlates the
Iron Age and Romano -British period with a major episode of woodland clearance through-
out the region. A period of reduced clearance phenomena and woodland regeneration is
envisaged for the Dark Ages and Saxon period, ending with a radiocarbon dated horizonof
io6odii6o bp at Fen Bogs. The spreading of monastic influences, especially in the thirteenth
century, noted by Farra, Mitchell, Waites and Wightman55 may have brought about
deforestation including the dales in the heart of the moors and some of the adjacent low-
lands, according to Jones56 and Simmons and Cundill;57 a phase terminated at Fen Bogs by a
radiocarbon date of 390^: 100 bp. The pollen diagrams from the higher altitude sites show
that a progressive cover of heath and blanket bog was developing throughout a period of
massive woodland clearance, rendering the uplands useful only for poor summer pasture.
Although dating of this final phase of woodland clearance is not certain, and probably not
synchronous throughout Blackamore, it is perhaps significant to note that widespread
regrowth of trees and shrubs did not occur after it. Continued agricultural practices and the
beginnings of industry ensured that little woodland regeneration took place. This pressure
has continued until the present day when the growth of heather on the upland is actively
encouraged as part of grouse moor management. Some pollen diagrams show continuing

51 Simmons, Atherden, Cundill and Jones, 1975.

52 Dimbleby, 1961.

53 Spratt and Simmons, 1976.

54 Atherden, 1972, 1976a and 1976b.

55 M. Farra, A Study of the Land Use Changes of the North York Moors (M.Sc. thesis, University of London, 1961);
P. K. Mitchell, West Cleveland Land Use (Ph.D. thesis, University of Durham, 1965); B. F. Waites, Moorland and
Vale Land Farming in North East Yorkshire. The Monastic Contribution in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth-Centuries (York,
1967); W. R. Wightman, ‘The pattern of vegetation in the Vale of Pickering area c.1300 A.D.’, Trans. Inst. Brit.
Geogr. 45 (1968), pp. 125-42.

56 Jones, 1971, 1976b and 1977.

57 Simmons and Cundill, 1974b.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

processes of agriculture and heather management and a few also show rises in tree pollens
at the top of their profile reflecting the planting of conifers and some hardwoods in recent
centuries as aesthetic or commercial ventures.

Conclusion

Early palaeobotanical researches established that the North York Moors were not natural
heathlands as formerly envisaged. A relatively narrow time-span was covered in considering
soil and peat pollen analyses of late Mesolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites. Through
detailed examination of organic, organo-mineral and mineral deposits a much fuller picture
of vegetation development in and around Blackamore from the end of the last glacial
period up until the present day can now be clearly shown. The effect of man on the vegeta-
tion of the area has been demonstrated for the greater part of the Flandrian. This pressure
was indicated by Dimbleby58 but could not be established for any more than the late
Mesolithic and Bronze Age. In general the outline of vegetation changes proposed by
Erdtman59 and ideas expressed by Dimbleby,60 contrary to the views of Elgee61 have been
substantiated in the present paper, with fuller explanations and inferences made possible by
the increased quantity of pollen and macrofossil data, together with radiocarbon assay.
The hypothesis that the open, treeless moorland of Blackamorewas man-induced, beginning
in the late Mesolithic, extended substantially during the Bronze Age, and then massively
increased in the Iron Age -Medieval period, can now be firmly supported.

58 Dimbleby, 1961.

59 Erdtman, 1927 and 1928.

60 Dimbleby, 1961.

61 Elgee, 1912.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 51, 1979

BRONZE AGE BURIALS FROM
WETWANG SLACK

By John S. Dent

Summary The sites of three round barrows were excavated in Wetwang Slack, part of a more extensive cemetery
previously investigated in Garton Slack to the east. From the 17 graves inhumations of four adults and four children,
as well as six cremations, were recovered. Grave goods included a collared urn, four food vessels, a bronze awl
and a jet button.

Since the opening in 1963 of the W. Clifford Watts gravel quarry the extraction of chalk
gravel from Garton Slack has resulted in the discovery of burials and settlement remains of
prehistoric date. I11 the nineteenth century J. R. and R. Mortimer excavated numbers of
burial mounds in Garton Slack south of the Driffield to York road,1 and since 1965 many
more have been examined by Mr. T. C. M. Brewster in the stretch of valley between
Gartonslack Gatehouse and Wetwang Grange.2

Fig. 1. Wetwang Slack: location map.

1 Mortimer, J. R., Forty Years Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds in East Yorkshire (London, 1905),
pp. 208-70.

2 Brewster, T. C. M., Reports in Archaeological Excavations 1965, pp. 7-8; 1968 , p. 13; 1969, pp. 13-14; 1970 ,
pp. 12-14, PI- II; 1971, pp. 13-16, PI. II; 1972, pp. 39-40; 1973, pp. 32-35; 1974, pp. 26-27; Current Archaeology V
(1975-6), PP- 105-116.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Fig. 2. Wetwaaig, Barrow ‘A’: plan.

BARROW A SOUTH EAST DITCH SECTION

Fig. 3. Wetwang, Barrow ‘A’: ditch section.

3 10 Feet
3 Metres

BRONZE AGE BURIALS FROM WETWANG SLACK

On 1 April 1975 a further programme of excavation began under the supervision of the
writer. The quarry had by that time reached fields O.S. 79 and 83 in the parish of Wetwang,
and during the summer and autumn of 1975 large numbers of Bronze Age and Iron Age
burials were discovered. The present report covers the Bronze Age burials discovered
during this period, consisting of three round barrows, as implied by the presence of ring
ditches, and three isolated graves (Fig. 1).

The slack itself has a flat bottom which was formed when a valley in the chalk was
half-filled with fluvio-glacial gravels at the end of the Ice Age. It was this gravel which was
the object of the quarrying operations, and consequently the excavations were confined to
the floor of the slack. Above the gravel all stratified archaeological material had been
destroyed by ploughing, and once this disturbed ploughsoil had been removed (a necessary
preliminary to quarrying and thus done by the quarry’s own machinery) the excavation
team was able to examine the surviving archaeological features.3

BARROW A

This was one of a group of three barrows which had stood on level ground in the middle
of the slack ; to the north-east was a large round barrow, excavated by T. C. M. Brewster,
which contained eleven graves with two beakers and a food vessel;4 immediately to the
north was a square-ditched Iron Age barrow of Arras Culture type.

The barrow survived as a sequence of superimposed ring ditches which had surrounded
the burial mound (Fig. 2). A section cut through these on the south-east clearly showed
three phases of ditch, but only one, presumably the final, phase was represented in two
sections cut through the north and south-western sides (Fig. 3). The earliest ditch was best
preserved on the east where it had not been damaged by the later re-cutting : it measured
4 ft 6 in. wide by 1 ft. 8 in. deep, was filled with gravel which had been stained dark grey
in places, and enclosed a platform 32 ft. in diameter. There was no central burial, although
the gravel in the centre of the platform was stained over an area c. 8 ft. in diameter; the gravel
generally was not as clean as that outside the barrow ditches.

The eastern arc of the primary ditch had probably been filled in deliberately and an
inhumation (Grave 1) inserted. Presumably at the same time the ditch was recut to enclose
a salient on the east side, increasing the size of the platform to 38 ft. by 33 ft. This second
ditch cannot have been more than 4-5 ft. wide on the western side of the barrow, but on the
south-east side it broadened to as much as 15 ft., although it was not more than 1 ft. 8 in.
deep. The fill consisted of interleaved lenses of gravel and brown earth. The unusual course
and width of the ditch on the east side must have been to extend the mound to cover the
burial, Grave 1.

A steep-sided ditch, 5 ft. 4 in. wide and 1 ft. 4 in. deep was cut through the filling of the
phase two ditch and filled up with lenses of gravel and brown earth. From the section cut
through the ditch on the south-west came carbonised remains of what might have been two
wooden planks ; these were above the primary silting. A similar timber was recorded from
the eastern side of the barrow where it was found by the mechanical excavator. This ditch
might have corresponded to the insertion into the mound on the east side of a cremation in
an inverted urn (Grave 2), while a fragment of a second urn from the ditch on the west side
suggests that more than one such burial took place.

Grave 1 was 6 ft. 2 in. by 4 ft. 3 in. by 1 ft. 10 in. deep and contained the flexed skeleton of
an adult female lying on the left side with the head to the north. There were signs of a

3 The excavations were carried out on behalf of Humberside Archaeological Committee with the help of a grant
from the Department of the Environment. The work was done by Mr. P. Brooks, Mrs. J. D. Dawes, Mr. G. Storry,
Mr. M. Tager, Miss A. L. Taigel and Mr. K. McK Turnbull with voluntary help from Mr. G. Wilson. The drawings
were done by Mr. J. R. B. Fieldhouse, who also produced the finished site drawings, and by Miss S. Howarth.
Interim reports are in Archaeological Excavations 1975, P- 42i 1976, p. 84; Current Archaeology VI (1978), pp. 46-50.

4 Current Archaeology V (1975-6), p. 107.

2 6

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

coffin c. 2 ft. wide and at least 4 ft. long in the grave fill, but these were not sufficiently clear
to show whether it had been of the plank or of the dug-out type. There were no grave
goods.

Grave 2 was 2 ft. 5 in. by 2 ft. 6\ in. and contained the remains of an inverted collared urn
filled with cremated bone. The pit had been filled with dirty gravel and was partly cut into
the fill of Grave 1.

Other Features In the south-east quadrant of the barrow was a pit (a) 4 ft. 5 in. by 3 ft. 6 in.
by 1 ft. 7 in. deep which may have been natural. Outside the barrow on the north and west
were five pits which might have been connected with later enclosures to the north and south,
but nothing was found in them and they could be contemporary with the round barrow.

(b) 6 ft. 3 in. by 3 ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. deep filled with dirty gravel.

(d) 8 ft. 5 in. by 6 ft. 8 in. by 1 ft. 6 in. deep filled with interleaved lenses of clean gravel

and dark brown earth.

(e) 2 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 4 in. by 4 in. deep filled with medium brown earth and gravel.

(f) 3 ft. by 2 ft. 1 in. by 4J in. deep filled with medium brown earth and gravel.
Conclusions The three stages of ditch are well established by the sequence seen in the
south-eastern section; nothing survived of the central burial which had presumably accom-
panied the first stage ditch. Grave 1 was clearly secondary from its position on the filled-up
ditch of phase one and surely goes with the second phase ditch. Grave 2 and the final stage
of the ditch presumably belong to the third and last phase of activity.

BARROW B

This burial mound had stood some 240 ft. south of Barrow A, close to the southern slope
of the slack. The circular burial area was surrounded at different times by two almost
circular ditches (Fig. 4). The first enclosed an area 38-39 ft. in diameter and the second an
area 43 ft. by 46 ft; neither ditch was more than 1 ft. 9 in. deep nor exceeded 4 ft. in width.
The earlier, inner ditch was filled with relatively clean gravel, while the later, outer ditch
contained dark, organic-looking soil above the primary gravel silt. There were six graves
within the burial area.

Grave 1 had been dug slightly to the south-east of the centre of the enclosure. It measured
7 ft. 4 in. by 4 ft. 8 in. by 2 ft. 5 in. deep and contained the crouched skeleton of an adult
male lying on the right side with the head to the west. The body had been inside a coffin of
the round-ended dug-out type, approximately 5 ft. 6 in. long and 1 ft. 8 in. wide. Inside the
coffin a Food Vessel had been placed in front of the body between the chin and the knees.
In the fill of the grave were fragments of a human skull, possibly the remains of an earlier
central burial, presumably laid either in a very shallow grave or on the old ground surface.
The grave was largely filled with gravel in a light brown earth matrix except where the
space inside the coffin had been filled with darker material which had presumably slipped in
when the coffin lid collapsed. The light grave fill was clearly cut through on the north-east
by the darker fill of Grave 5.

Grave 2 lay 1 ft. to the south of Grave 1. It measured 5 ft. by 2 ft. 11 in. by 2 ft. 2 in. deep
and contained the poorly preserved remains of an infant accompanied by a Food Vessel.
The head had been at the west end of the grave with the body flexed on its right side facing
south. The pot stood upright at the east end of the grave, while along the south side particles
of carbon suggested that a wooden frame or coffin had contained both the body and the
pot. The gravel which filled the grave was set in a limey clay matrix which had seeped into
it in recent times from a nineteenth-century railway ditch.

Grave 3 was 3 in. to the south-west of Grave 2 and measured 3 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft 11 in. by
10 in. deep. It had been cut through on the south-east by a modern fence post-hole but this
had not disturbed the burial. In the centre of the grave was a heap of cremated bone con-

BRONZE AGE BURIALS FROM WETWANG SLACK

tained in a roughly trapezoidal area 1 tt. 2 in. long and 6-8 in. wide, along the side of which
were carbonised wood remains, possibly from a funerary casket. Against the north-west
corner of the grave, outside the area of carbonised wood, were the remains of an inverted
Food Vessel, badly damaged both by plough action and during the removal of topsoil.
Grave 4 lay close inside the inner ditch on the north-east side of the barrow and was the
largest grave in the group, measuring 8 ft. 5 in. by 5 ft. 9 in. by 1 ft. 9 in. deep. In the centre
was the flexed skeleton of an adult female lying on the right side with head to the north-
west. The right arm was extended to the hip and over it, in immediate contact with the

BARROW B

Fig. 4. Wetwang, Barrow ‘B’: plan.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

bone, was a pile of cremated bone. A copper awl was between the chin and the right collar
bone, and a trapezoidal patch of charcoal extended from beneath the head towards the end
of the grave, possibly the remains of a funerary object or part of the coffin. The coffin
itself was clearly visible in section and must have measured approximately 2 ft. 8 in. in
width by at least 4 ft. 3 in. in length (to contain the carbonised object). The grave fill
consisted of gravel in a light brown earth matrix with darker earth inside the coffin.

Grave 5 lay above and to the north-west of Grave 1, and was clearly later. It measured
4 ft. 8 in. by 2 ft. 7 in. by 9 in. deep and contained the flexed skeleton of a child, lying on
the right side with the head to the west. In front of the chest was an inverted accessory
vessel. The arrangement of the bones and the variations in fill suggested that the body had
laid in a small rectangular coffin, approximately 2 ft. 3 in. long by 9J in. wide. The skeleton
and the pot were in a matrix of dark earth and gravel (which could have been derived from
earlier mound material). The relationship with Grave 1 was clearly established: Grave 1
was already there when Grave 5 was dug.

Grave 6 was 2 ft. 4 in. by 1 ft. 11 in. and was 8 in. deep, filled with dark grey earth
(similar to the fill of Grave 5), and containing the crouched skeleton of an infant lying on its
left side with the head to the east. There was no indication that the body had been inside a
coffin; indeed there was very little room in the grave for more than the infant. As with
Grave 5 the nature of the fill suggests that earlier mound material had been included in the
backfilling.

Other Features Inside the burial area were six pits (a-f).

(a) Oval, filled with light to medium brown earth and gravel, and measuring c. 5 ft. 3 in.
by 3 ft. 3 in. by 1 ft. 6 in. deep.

(b) Oval, filled with grey earth and gravel, and measuring c.$ ft. by 3 ft. 11 in. by 1 ft. in.
deep.

(a) and (b) are unlikely to have been contemporary but the relationship was not established;
possibly, by analogy with Graves 5 and 6, the dark fill of (b) indicates that it was the later.

(d) Circular, filled with dark brown to grey earth, and measuring 2 ft. 5 in. by 2 ft. 4 in.
by 7J in. deep.

e) A long oval pit, filled with dark brown to black earth and gravel, and measuring 5 ft.
by 2 ft. 7 in. by 1 ft. 1 in. deep.

(f) Circular, 3 -3 ft. 3 in. in diameter and 10J in. deep, and filled with medium brown earth
and gravel.

To the north-east of the barrow and 12 ft. from the inner ditch was a slot (g) 11 ft. by
2 ft. 8 in. by 9 in. deep which ran parallel to the barrow ditch. This had been recut as a
slot (h), 12 ft. by 2 ft. 7 in. by 1 ft. 2 in. deep, 6 ft. from the outer ditch. The earlier slot
was filled mainly with gravel in a light brown matrix, the top 4-5 in. of which were stained
grey; the recut contained rather more of this dark filling than could be accounted for by its
greater depth. Both features were ditch-like in their fill and they could correspond to the
two phases of the barrow ditch.

The barrow stood within an oval enclosed by a ditch approximately 140 ft. from east to
west by 120 ft. from north to south. This ditch was generally about 4 ft. 6 in. wide and
1 ft. 6 in. deep and was connected to the north ditch of an early Iron Age roadway which
followed the southern edge of the valley floor at this point (Fig. 1).

Conclusions There is ample evidence in the barrow remains for two phases of activity: the
two ditches, the overlapping slots (g) and (h), the relationship between Graves 1 and 5 and
between pits (a) and (b). The evidence from Grave 1, however, indicates that there were
three phases. The skull fragments in the fill show that an earlier burial had been disturbed in
digging the grave, even though the head might have been the only part of the body affected

BRONZE AGE BURIALS FROM WETWANG SLACK

BARROW C'

20 Feet

Fig. 5. Wetwang, Barrow ‘C’: plan.

6 Metres
I

by the operation. The absence of any trace of a grave is a good argument for the body
having been laid on the old ground surface. In view of this evidence the life of the barrow
may be summed up as follows:

Phase 1 : a burial on the ground surface was presumably covered with a low mound. The
apparent respect shown for each other by secondary graves 1, 2, and 3, and also the lack of
evidence for earlier mound material having been incorporated in the grave fill suggests that
the first phase mound was low. The ditch would have provided only enough gravel for a
low mound and, while it may have been used to give a capping of a mound or turf or other
substance, there is no sign of this in the secondary graves. The earlier slot (g) and pits (a),
(c) and (f) could belong to this phase.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Phase 2 : four burials, Graves 1-4, were inserted into the existing low mound and after the
last interment the mound was heightened. The fill of the third phase graves might have
included material derived from turf, while a similar fill was found inside the collapsed coffin
in Grave 1. The second ditch may have been dug to provide a white gravel capping to a
turf mound. The recut slot (h) probably belongs to this phase, and pits (a), (c) and (f) could
as easily have been cut at this time as in Phase 1.

Phase 3: two further burials, Graves 5 and 6, were cut into the mound; so too may have
been pits (b), (d) and (e), all of which contained the similar darkened filling, probably from
the earlier mound. There may have been a further heightening of the mound with turf but
there was no evidence that gravel was used to provide a finish.

BARROW C

The third barrow of the group was first seen when about a quarter of the ditch circuit
was removed by the quarry (Fig. 5). The features which made up the barrow had hitherto
lain hidden beneath a thin crust of topsoil which covered the then northern limits of the site.

Most of the barrow platform survived, including the central area where a primary burial
would be expected. There was no central grave and it seems likely that this is another
example of primary burial on the ground surface. The barrow platform was enclosed by a
ditch 33-34 ft. in diameter and not more than 2 ft. wide and 1 ft. deep. This had been
succeeded by a second ditch 38 ft. in diameter, 2 ft. 8 in. wide and 8 in. deep. The first ditch
was filled with brown earth and gravel, the second with coarse flints and black earth.

Four grave pits (1-4) cut into the fill of the inner ditch (one also cut the outer ditch) had
similar filling and all but one contained fragments of burnt bone.

Grave 1 measured 1 ft. 7 in. by 1 ft. 3 in. by 6 in. deep and was filled with 3 in. of gravel,
on top of which was 3 in. of black earth containing a few fragments of cremated bone.

Grave 2 measured 1 ft. 7 in. by 1 ft. 4 in. by 7 in. deep and contained 2 in. of black earth
and gravel, over which was 2 in. of brown clay and 3 in. of black earth with fragments of
cremated bone.

Grave 3 measured 1 ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. 3 in. by 4 in. deep and contained black earth with flint
chips and coarse gravel, with cremated bone fragments in the top inch. This pit cut the
filling of both ditches.

Grave 4 measured 1 ft. 10 in. by 1 ft. 9 in. by 10 in. deep and was filled with coarse gravel
and flint in the top 5 in. No cremated bone was recovered, but in view of the similarity in
size and fill, this was thought to have been a similar deposit to Graves 1-3. Where cremated
bone was recovered it was confined to the top of the fill and could easily have been the last
vestige of a largely ploughed out deposit.

Other Features On the north side of the barrow a shallow, flat-bottomed pit (a) on the
line of the outer ditch seemed to be no more than a simple deepening of the ditch at that
point but produced no finds. Immediately to the south of this feature was a deep pit (b)
which clearly pre-dated the first ditch of the barrow. This pit measured 11 ft. by 8 ft. 6 in.
by 5 ft. 9 in. deep and was filled with layers of clean gravel alternating with lenses of dark
grey earth and flints. Two shoulder blades of pig were found lying on the bottom of the pit.
Conclusions A burial on the old ground surface had been covered by a mound and sur-
rounded by a ditch, which cut across the filling of an earlier pit. No trace of this primary
grave survived but an unstratified Beaker sherd was found immediately outside the barrow
ditch and could have come from a central burial. The ditch was recut, possibly at a time of
further burials which have not survived. Four cremation deposits were made in graves
which cut the fill of the ditches and the similarities in form suggest that they were put there
at about the same time. There were clearly three phases of activity represented, of which
the first could have involved a Beaker burial.

BRONZE AGE BURIALS FROM WETWANG SLACK

Grave

ax jet button
b: carbonised wood
C: deer scapula
d- cremation

5 feet

Fig. 6. Wetwang, isolated graves: plan.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

ISOLATED BURIALS (Fig. 6)

Three graves were not enclosed by barrow ditches; only one of these contained a dateable
artifact, but a radiocarbon determination from another indicates that all three belong to
the Bronze Age.

Grave i was found among the graves of an Iron Age cemetery 64 ft. north-west of Barrow
B. It was 5 ft. 10 in. long by 4 ft. 5 in. wide and contained the badly decayed skeleton of a
child lying crouched on the left side with the head to the north. Only the skull and more
robust long bones survived. There was no sign of a coffin in the grave fill. In front of the
stomach was a jet button with ‘V’ perforation lying base downwards on the floor of the
grave. Although the surrounding gravel surface had been much disturbed by later Iron Age
graves and their surrounding ditches, there was no trace of a ditch belonging to this Bronze
Age grave.

Graves 2 and 3 were 185 ft. east of Barrow B. No ditch surrounded them, but as they were
not contemporary it is quite likely that the earlier grave had been marked in some way and
that the later burial had been deliberately inserted on the same site. Grave 2 had originally
measured about 4 ft. 8 in. by 2 ft. 10 in. by 1 ft. 5 in. deep and contained a cremation. I11
the digging of Grave 3 some of the deposit had been displaced and a few fragments were
found in the fill of Grave 3. There were no grave goods.

Grave 3 was 5 ft. 8 in. long by 3 ft. 7 in. by 2 ft. 4 in. deep and was orientated from east to
west. It contained the crouched skeleton of an adult female with the head to the west and
facing south. On a slight ledge 1 ft. 10 in. long by 6 in. wide at the east end of the grave
were traces of organic matter and the shoulder blade of a deer. The organic matter appeared
to have spilled down the side of the grave. At the west end of the grave a circular patch of
charcoal some 5 in. in diameter might have been the remains of a ritual deposit (a wooden
bowl?) and in the grave filling was a flint blade. No definite traces of a coffin were seen.
Charcoal taken from the east end of the grave was dated at 1500 b.c.Tpo (HAR-1878).

Conclusions Although there is no trace of a mound or ditch, the intersection of Graves 2
and 3 suggests that the earlier grave was marked in some way which has left no signs. The
jet button from Grave 1 and the date from the charcoal of Grave 3 distinguishes these
burials from the large number of Iron Age inhumations around them. The cremation in
Grave 2 is by implication also placed in the Early Bronze Age.

SUMMARY

Where a circular burial mound had been constructed it appears that the primary burial
in all three cases had been laid on the ground surface and then covered over. Ploughing had
removed both the mounds and the burials. It may be conjectured that the earliest burials
were of Beaker or Food Vessel date, although only a single unstratified Beaker sherd was
recovered. Barrow B contained an impressive series of Food Vessel burials, both cremations
and inhumations, in the second phase, apparently followed later by further inhumations.
Barrow A contained an inhumation in its second phase, while both Barrows A and C had
cremations in their final (third) phase. That both rites were practised simultaneously is shown
from the double burial in Barrow B, Grave 4.

The isolated graves may have been covered by small mounds or turf stacks which have
left no trace in the gravel subsoil. In the case of Graves 2 and 3 their intersection suggests
that some form of marking existed above ground.

The significance of this group as part of a larger assemblage will best be seen when the
current excavations are completed and in the light of discoveries made in Garton Slack by
Mr. T. C. M. Brewster.

BRONZE AGE BURIALS FROM WET WANG SLACK

Fig. 7. Wetwang, finds: 1, 4, 5, 8, 9. pottery. Scale 1:3. 2. flint blade; 3. jet button; 6. copper/bronze awl;

7, 10. pottery. Scale 2:3.

THE FINDS
By T. G. Manby

Barrow A

Grave 2 Collared Urn; crushed and distorted, base missing (Fig. 7,1). About 20 in.
(50-8 cm) high; about 12 J in. (3 1 -7 cm) diameter at rim. Gritty brown fabric with dark grey

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

core, darkened by consolidation agent. The rim has a flat top, moulded inside to form a
bevel, a rib below and a second rib at the base of the collar. There is incised herring-bone
decoration on the collar and diagonal strokes on the rim bevel and rib, with in between a
row of round punch marks. The neck is decorated with coarse cord maggot impressions
arranged in a herring-bone pattern.

Collared urns were not numerous from Mortimer’s excavations of Garton Slack barrows,
which produced some 17 Food Vessels against a single urn from Barrow 76. 5 The most
unusual feature of the present urn is the moulded rib below the internal rim bevel. This is
difficult to parallel amongst the collared urn series of Northern England but occurs on a
highly decorated urn found at Milton in Northamptonshire.6 Without this rib our vessel
would still have a place amongst the urns showing internal moulding , one of the formal traits
distinguished by Longworth as representative of urns of his Primary Series.7 Other traits
also present are the flattened rim, the form of the collar, the internal decoration and the
presence of the herring-bone motif on both collar and neck. The validity of these selected
traits of form and decoration as indicators of a relatively early date within the collared urn
series is now open to reconsideration in the light of the slowly increasing number of radio-
carbon dates. However the chronological and cultural inter-relationships of this urn, and
other Wetwang Slack finds, would be inappropriate subjects for discussion at the present
time.

Phase 3 Ditch , west side Sherd, possibly from a small collared urn, with orange surface,
dark grey core and interior, and finely incised herring-bone decoration (Fig. 7,7).

Barrow B

Grave 1 Food Vessel, Abercromby Type ia (Fig. 7,4).

\\ in. (1 1 *4 cm) high, 6 in. (15-4 cm) diameter at rim, 2§ in. (7 cm) diameter at base. Compact
fabric, buff surface with grey core. Well made with sharp profile; five perforated lugs
evenly spaced in the shoulder groove. Well executed cord-impressed decoration on the
upper portion of the exterior and on the rim bevel.

Grave 2 Food Vessel, Abercromby Type 2. (Fig. 7,8)

5-8 in. (14*7 cm) high, 6f in. (17*3 cm) diameter at rim, 3 in. (8 cm) diameter at base. Smooth
brown surface with reddish tones; where the exterior slip has flaked away much coarse
angular grit can be seen in the fabric. It is decorated with the impressions of a thick cord;
horizontal lines on the rim bevel, neck, groove and just below the shoulder ridge; also used
to form ‘maggot’ impressions on the ridge and in vertical rows on the body.

Grave 3 Food Vessel, Abercromby Type 3 (Fig. 7,5). Fragmentary, with base missing.
Over 3 -3 in. (9 cm) high, 5 in. (12*7 cm) diameter at rim. Compact fabric, buff surface with
dark grey core. Cord impressed decoration; herring-bone pattern on the rim bevel, short
diagonal impression in rows on the upper part of the exterior.

Grave 4 Bronze awl, if in. (2*8 cm) long. Flattened tang, square centre section and pale
green patina (Fig. 7,6).

Grave 5 Small Food Vessel, Abercromby Type 5 (Fig. 7,9). 3 in. (7 -6 cm) high, 3 *3 by 3 *4
in. (8 by 8-6 cm) diameter at rim, 2 in. (5 cm) diameter at base. Smooth reddish buff fabric,
dark grey core with pieces of calcite grit. Chisel rim with an internal bevel decorated with
short incised lines. Decorated on the exterior with triangular chip impressions in horizontal
rows.

Barrow C, unstratified Beaker sherd: reddish exterior, dark core and interior. Decorated
with two horizontal lines of comb impressions (Fig. 7,10).

5 Mortimer, op. cit. in n. 1, p. 225, Fig. 577.

6 Hawkes, C. F. C., ‘An Early Bronze Age Urn from Milton, Northants.’ Atit.J. 47 (1967), pp. 198-208.

7 Longworth, I. M., ‘The Origins and Development of the Primary Series in the Collared Urn Tradition in
England and Wales’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. 27 (1961), pp. 263-306.

BRONZE AGE BURIALS FROM WETWANG SLACK

Isolated Grave i Jet button, i in. (2-5 cm) in diameter. The slightly domed upper surface
is smooth but the underside shows cut marks in various directions. V-perforation (Fig. 7,3).
Isolated Grave 3 Flint blade, 2\ in. (6- 4 cm) long, with white porcellanous patination. The
butt displays a cocked-hat outline; both edges have coarse retouch along their lengths and
the end is roughly trimmed across (Fig. 7,2).

Comments Barrow B provides an important addition to the large number of Food Vessels
recovered from barrows along the floor of Garton Slack by Mortimer and Brewster. It
should occasion no surprise that this new pottery should have close visual parallels in shape
and decoration amongst Food Vessels from previous excavations. However, comparisons
are also possible with finds from other barrow groups both on the Yorkshire Wolds and,
more distantly, on the North York Moors. While a detailed discussion of the chronology
and relationships of all the Garton Slack ceramic material must await a future occasion,
there are some immediate parallels to be considered.

The removal of the mound of Barrow B has destroyed the prospect of establishing the
stratigraphical relationship of Graves 1-4. Only Grave 5 is known to be later than Grave 1,
as it was cut into the latter’s filling. Graves 1-4 may all pre-date the construction of the
barrow mound and could all be contemporary rather than there being any primary and
secondary relationship. Three pre-barrow Food Vessel graves were recorded by Mortimer
at Garrowby Barrow 1018 and serve to illustrate the pattern of multiple internment that is a
featuie of East Yorkshire Food Vessel barrows.

An indication of the close relationship between Graves 1 and 3 lies in the close similarity
of fabric, modelling and decoration of the Food Vessels from these graves. The Type 3
vessel from Grave 3 may be closely compared with a vessel from Garton Slack Barrow 167. 9
Similarly the Type ia vessel from Grave 1 can be compared both in size and in the use of
herring-bone pattern decoration with vessels from Garton Slack Barrows 153, 162 and
171.10 This vessel is, however, distinctive in having a very narrow, undecorated, shoulder
groove with five lugs instead of the usual four. The narrow shoulder groove was taken by
the writer to be a typologically early feature in his revision of Abercromby’s scheme,* 11 and
such vessels would be classified as Type ia(i). Our vessel can then be placed in a distinctively
modelled group of Type ia(i) Food Vessels from eastern Yorkshire, comprising the follow-
ing examples:

The vessel from Grave 3 has a possible parallel in a Type 3 vessel from Garton Slack
Barrow 16713 and it is of a common type in Eastern Yorkshire. While Type 2 Food Vessels
were obtained by Mortimer from his Garton Slack barrows, none is close in profile to that
from Grave 2. On this vessel the depth of the shoulder groove is greater than the depth of
the neck and would belong to Type 2(iii) in the revised typology.14 In profile and surface
treatment the vessel is closely comparable to the Food Vessel from Sharpe Howe, Folkton.15
Although somewhat larger than the Wetwang example, it has the same thick cord impres-
sion forming horizontal lines on the upper portion but a lozenge pattern over the body.

The final vessel, from Grave 5, is identical in profile to a small vessel from Garton Slack
Barrow 67, 16 which has a wider rim bevel decorated with cord lines and stab impression,
while on the exterior are short cord lines and maggot impressions arranged in zones. A
large vessel of this profile, including the chisel rim, is in the Kendall Collection in the
Yorkshire Museum (1188-47), decorated with cord-impressed herring-bone pattern on its

8 Mortimer, op. cit. in n. 1, pp. 136-137.

9 Ibid., p. 243, Fig. 612.

10 Ibid., pp. 218, Fig. 562, 213, Fig. 529 and 226, Fig. 579.

11 Manby, T. G., ‘Food Vessels of the Peak District’, Derbyshire Archaeol. J. 78 (1958), pp. 1-29.

12 Bateman, T., Ten Years' Diggings in Celtic and Saxon Grave Hills . . . (London and Derby, 1861), p. 218.

13 Mortimer, op. cit. in n. 1, p. 243, Fig. 612.

14 Manby, op. cit. in n. io, p. 4.

16 Greenwell, W., ‘Recent Researches in Barrows in Yorkshire . . .’, Archaeologia 52 (1890), p. 6, Fig. 2.

16 Mortimer, op. cit. in n. 1, p. 243, Fig. 11.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

upper portion. This Food Vessel has no find spot but, like the rest of the Kendall Collection,
probably comes from a barrow site on the North York Moors in the Pickering district.

The bronze awl from Grave 4, characterised by the broad flattened tang, is a type that
may prove to be chronologically significant but is not exclusive to a single ceramic style.
Awls of this type have associations with inhumations accompanied by Food Vessels at
Garrowby Barrow 10117 and at Rudston Barrow 52. 18 But there are accessory cup associa-
tions with an inhumation at Staxton Beacon and a cremation at Aldro Barrow 113 ;19 the
association of the awl from Sherburn Barrow 12 is with a collared urn inverted over a
cremation.20

Site

Sledmere Warren
Barrow 274

Reference

Mortimer (1905) 270,
fig- 735

Museum

Hull

Lugs

Decoration

Cord patterns, all-over

Garton Slack

Barrow C54

Mortimer (1905) 219,
Fig. 563

Hull

Cord patterns, all-over

Rudston

Barrow 72

Greenwell (1877) 258

British 79,12-9.
942

Corded herring-bone,
all-over

Huggate Wold

British 79,12-9.
1992

Incised herring-bone,
all-over

Weaverthorpe

Barrow 43

Greenwell (1877) 193

British 79.12-9.
439

Cord line and knot,
upper portion

10 Miles N.E. of
Pickering

Bateman (1861)12 218

Sheffield J93.844

Cord lines and stabs,
upper portion

Levisham Moor

Yorkshire

1012.47

Cord lines, upper
portion

Kirby Misperton

Yorkshire

1189.47

Cord line and incised
herring-bone, upper
portion

Hutton Buscel Moor

Yorkshire

1028.47

Incised herring-bone,
all-over

Folkton

Barrow 243

Greenwell (1890) 12,

Fig. 4-

British 89.2-2.

4 plus 1
in neck

Incised herring-bone and
chip, all-over

Cropton

Fall Rig

Y orkshire

1184.47

4 plus 1
in neck

Incised herring-bone an I
chip, all-over

THE HUMAN BONES
ByJ. D. Dawes

Six inhumations were found in barrows ; two further inhumations were probably Bronze
Age in date but neither grave had any sign of a surrounding barrow. Each skeleton, after
lifting, was cleaned and repaired as far as was possible or practicable, before qualitative and
quantitative assessment. Measurements used were as defined by Brothwell and Parsons. 21

Skeleton Catalogue

Barrow A, Grave 1 This was the complete but fragmentary skeleton of a woman, probably
at least 35 years of age, though the degree of tooth attrition was low for this estimate. She

17 Ibid., p. 136, Fig. 359.

18 Greenwell, W., British Barrows (Oxford, 1877), p. 235.

19 Mortimer, op. cit. in n. 1, p. 76, Fig. 165.

20 Greenwell, op. cit. in n. 17, p. 235.

21 Brothwell, D., Digging up Bones (London, 1972; Parsons, G., ‘The Characteristics of the English thigh bone’,
J. Anat. London 48 (1914), pp. 238-67.

BRONZE AGE BURIALS FROM WET WANG SLACK

had a broad, high, ovoid skull, a long, oval face, wide between the eyes, a high receding
forehead and a prominent bridge to the nose. She was 161 cm tall, fairly gracile and platy-
meric and eurycnemic (i.e. of slender build with flat thighs and thick legs. Ed.). The teeth
were in very good condition with a moderate amount of calculus. No disease, anomaly or
ante-mortem damage was found.

Barrow B, Grave i This was the complete skeleton of an adult man. Tooth attrition
suggested an age of between 25 and 35 years, but in view of the state of complete fusion of
the cranial sutures the real age was probably higher. He was 169 cm in height, platymeric,
with a mesocnemic right tibia and a eurycnemic left. His skull was broad oval, fairly high,
the face long and square with a bulging forehead and a very wide nose. There was slight
arthritis of the lumbar region of the spine and gross swelling and distortion of the left fifth
metatarsal, possibly an infection caused by a foot wound. There was slight alveolar absorp-
tion, suggesting a slight degree of peridontal disease, but all the teeth were in very good
condition and there was moderate calculus.

Barrow B, Grave 2 These were very tiny fragments of bone, all that was left of a baby’s
skeleton, larger than that of a newborn child but belonging to an infant less than one
year old.

Barrow B, Grave 4 This was the complete skeleton of a woman of between 17 and 25 years.
She had a broad skull and a prognathous face, with a wide nose, a low forehead and a low
vault. She had a stature of 159 cm and was platymeric, with the right tibia mesocnemic and
the left tibia eurycnemic. Flattening of the frontal bone near the bregma may be due to a
blow. The teeth were in very good condition.

Barrow B, Grave 5 This skeleton was very crushed and eroded. It was that of a child of
between 4 and 6 years but the condition of the bones precluded any viable conclusions as
to sex and physique.

Barrow B, Grave 6 These were very eroded fragments of the skull and limb bones of an
infant of about 2 years of age. There were multiple sutural bones in the left lambdoid suture.
The forehead was vertical and sharply angled, a neonatal bossing quite common in young
children.

Isolated Grave 1 This was the very rotted skeleton of a child with only fragments of the
skull and long bones surviving, none in good enough condition to permit even in situ
lengths to be taken. From the teeth recovered the age at death was probably about 7 years.
No conclusions as to sex were practicable.

Isolated Grave 3 This was the fragile but complete skeleton of a woman. She was probably
between 35 and 45 years old at death. She was about 159 cm in height and her left leg was
noticeably slighter and both more platymeric and more platycnemic than the right. The
skull was broad, beloid, with a moderately high, vertical and fairly narrow forehead, a deep
palate and a pointed chin. The full complement of adult teeth was present and healthy, with
moderate calculus deposits. There was a small sutural bone at lambda.

General conclusions Bronze Age inhumations reviewed here were of four adults and four
children. The adults, three women and a man, were all of fairly average height; their bones
were healthy and there was no sign of dental decay, dental abscess or tooth loss. In three
cases tooth attrition was much lower than would be expected from other age indications,
and this may well indicate a high meat/low cereal diet. The skulls were all large and broad,
the faces broad with a wide space between the eyes and broad noses. The numbers available
here are far too few for viable population conclusions and the high homogeneity of the
group may reflect only a small, closely-knit community.

Cremation deposits Deposits of cremated bone were separated first by a 10 mm and then
by a 5 mm sieve; the bone and stone was then hand sorted. Bones were weighed, their

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

colour and condition was noted, and identifiable fragments put aside for further examina-
tion. Age was assessed mainly from surviving tooth roots and from the state of fusion of
suture edges on vault fragments. In some cases it was possible to assign a probable sex to the
cremation. Identified fragments gave some indication of the number of individuals present,
and the degree of calcination of different areas was checked for clues as to cremation posi-
tion. All but one of the cremations came from the three round barrows on the site. The odd
one was also probably Bronze Age, although no circular surrounding ditch was detected.

In all seven cremations were examined and these may represent the remains of nine
individuals: six adults, a baby, a foetus and a child. The very small amounts of cremated
bone recovered from deposits in Barrow C may reflect the possibility that a single burnt
body may have been interred in more than one deposit. Alternatively, either only a token
portion of the cremation was buried or, more probably, the great mass of burnt fragments
may have been disturbed and destroyed by more recent agricultural operations. In all cases
under review here the various parts of the body were fairly evenly calcined, suggesting that
these bodies had been burnt on top of a pyre, unlike some of the cremations recovered from
adjacent sites in Garton and Wetwang Slacks by T. C. M. Brewster (report forthcoming).
This position, with the subsequent shifting of remains during combustion and stoking, is
more conducive to even firing than those instances where the body was laid on the earth
and the fire built over it. In all cases the bones were not very heavily calcined, indicating an
open-air pyre with fairly good but not exhaustive combustion. The amount of stone and
gravel mixed up with the bone, often showing heat fracture and presumably swept up with
the cremated bone, varied widely. There were very few fragments of charcoal found with
any of the deposits as part of them, although one, from Barrow B, Grave 3, had charcoal
staining surrounding the bone, possibly from a wooden container. One cremation, from
Barrow A, Grave 2, was in an inverted urn, and another, from Barrow B, Grave 4, which
lay compactly over the arm of an inhumation, may have been contained in a bag. Otherwise
the rest had apparently been heaped in a hole.

Barrow A, Grave 2 This deposit, recovered from a large cinerary urn, had a great deal of
stone and gravel mixed up with it. Consequently, while the large fragments, over 10 mm
and up to about 50 mm in length, were separated completely by hand, the large amount of
smaller pieces, 2-10 mm in length, were estimated by the weighing of the complete gravel/
bone mixture in this size range and then by a careful separation of 100 gm of the mixture
into its bone and stone components. As 55 percent of the sample by weight was bone, it was
considered that the same percentage of the total weight as bone was a fairly accurate
approximation. Altogether there was thus 2064 gm of bone, cream/white and pale grey in
colour, and hard in condition with some heat fissuring but little twisting. Some limb pieces
had probably been snapped but there was no evidence for systematic crushing. All parts of
the body were represented, but there was no observed duplication, so that this was probably
all one body despite the large quantity recovered. Suture edges were not sharp and separate,
so that this was probably an adult over 30 years old, of uncertain sex.

Barrow B , Grave 3 Found with, but not in, a decorated pottery vessel, this deposit had
indications of a surrounding wooden box in the form of dark staining. There was a large
amount of soil and ash (570 gm) mixed with the bone fragments. There were 655 gm of bone
between 10 mm and 60 mm in length and 296 gm between 2 mm and 10 mm long, uni-
formly cream/buff in colour, hard, with some heat fissuring but little twisting and distortion,
and not very highly calcined. Some pieces were evidently from an adult but a pair of foetal
petrous terminals were present and also a further petrous temporal from a baby or small
child. The likelihood is that in this cremation there was a pregnant woman and a small child.
Barrow B, Grave 4 This cremation was a well defined deposit over the right elbow of an
inhumation. The area of bone was so discrete that it seems likely that the cremated bone was
originally in a bag or similar container. There was 1205 gm of deposit, of which 855 gm

BRONZE AGE BURIALS FROM WETWANG SLACK

was composed of pieces between io mm and 60 mm long, ioo gm were ash and soil mixture,
and the remaining 250 gm were between 2 mm and 10 mm long. There was no sign of
deliberate crushing of the remains, which were uniformly cream/buff in colour, hard, well
preserved, and only lightly calcined. All parts of the body were identified and there was
apparently one adult present, who must have been young as cranial sutures were apparently
mainly open. No indication of specific sex was found.

Barrow C, Grave 1 There was less than 2 gm of bone in this deposit, cream/ white in colour,
warped, twisted and brittle, and between 2 mm and 16 mm in length. Two tooth roots,
both with complete root canals, were in the sample. It was not certain whether they came
from adult or milk dentition.

Barrow C, Grave 2 Only about 50 gm of cremated bone were found in a great deal of soil
and gravel. Pieces were between 2 mm and 50 mm in length, mainly between 15 mm and
30 mm, mostly cream but a few black, tough, hard, warped and fissured. There were vault,
limb and vertebral fragments of a baby or small child and unerupted tooth crowns of a
canine and upper central incisor of milk dentition. This was probably a child either newborn
or under six months old. A little charcoal was found here.

Barrow C, Grave 3 Less than 25 gm of bone was found mixed with 840 gm of soil, gravel
and stones. The bone was cream/white, tough, hard, slightly warped and heat fissured. No
completely identifiable fragment was recovered, but the bone pieces, all between 2 mm and
30 mm in length, were probably parts of human adult limb bones. Four fragments of
charcoal accompanied them.

Barrow C, Grave 4 A suspected deposit had no detectable bone at all.

Isolated Grave 2 There was 1255 gm of burnt bone, varying in size from 2 mm to 90 mm
in length. The colour was a uniform cream with very few pieces showing a blue-black
middle. The condition was light and brittle with some heat cracks but very little twist and
warping. All parts of the body were represented. Cranial sutures were largely open and
small supra-orbital ridges were seen. This was probably a young adult woman. The general
large size of fragments indicated that there was no crushing of the remains, although some
snapping of large pieces may still have occurred. One small brown clinker was found,
possibly burnt hair.22

THE ANIMAL BONES
(Information from Colin Simms)

The following bones were identified:

Barrow A, phase 3 ditch: sheep ( ovis ) or goat ( capra ), part of tibia, dog (cards sp.), metatarsal.
Barrow C, pit ( b ): pig ( sus sp.), two scapulae.

Isolated Grave 3: red deer (cervus elaphus (Linnaeus)), scapula.

THE MOLLUSCA
(Information from Alan Norris)

Specimens of cepaea nernoralis (L) occurred in the second ditch of Barrow B, in the earlier of two short slots to
the south-east of that barrow, and in the pit underlying the ditch of Barrow C. In addition cepaea hortensis (Muller)
was identified among specimens from the second source. Both are varieties of the common garden snail which
thrives today on nettles and other plants which grow on disused land.

Although specimens were found of cecilioides ( cecilioides ) acicula (Muller), this is a modern burrowing snail which
occurs widely on archaeological sites, but which has only been established in this country since Roman times.

The Council of the Society is grateful to the Department of the Environment for a grant towards
the cost of publishing this paper.

22 Wells, C., ‘A study of cremation’, Antiquity 34 (i960), pp. 29-37.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 51, 1979

THE GIGGLES WICK TARN LOGBOAT

By Sean McGrail and Sonia O’Connor

Summary A fragmented nineteenth-century logboat find from Giggleswick Tarn, Yorkshire, has been conserved
and re-assembled at the National Maritime Museum. The boat, which has been dated to the fourteenth-century,
has fittings of great interest to nautical archaeologists.

History of the find

On 25 May 1863, whilst draining land which in earlier times formed part of Giggleswick
Tarn (Fig. 1), near Settle in Craven, Yorkshire (NGR: SD 8073 6459), Joseph Taylor found
the remains of a boat. It proved to be a logboat (dugout canoe) made from a single ash
(Fraxinus Sp) tree, and associated with it were fittings, also of ash, which are of great interest
to nautical archaeologists. The landowner, William Hartley, subsequently gave the boat to
the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, who displayed it on top of ‘one of the ethno-
logical cases in the inner vestibule of our hall’.1 In 1921 the Society transferred its collection
to the City of Leeds to form the present City Museum.

The principal features of the boat were described by O’ Callaghan2 in an address to the
1863 Congress of the British Archaeological Association. Brayshaw3 and Wildridge4
recorded some of the boat’s subsequent history, and published photographs. Regrettably,
none of these authors published a measured drawing of the remains.

In 1974 the Giggleswick boat was examined during McGrail’s survey of the 72 logboats
surviving in the museums of England and Wales. Although it was fragmented and distorted,
the importance of this boat, then in the Leeds City Museum’s reserve collection at Famley
Hall, was immediately apparent. Through the good offices of Miss Elizabeth Pirie, Keeper of
Archaeology at the City Museum, the boat was subsequently loaned to the National
Maritime Museum for conservation and research.

Condition of the boat remains

The boat was in about 45 major pieces and many more fragments when it was taken from
its crate on arrival at Greenwich (Fig. 2). The surfaces of the boat had, at some earlier date,
been coated with a creosote-like substance which had remained tacky and acted as a dust
trap. There were also splashes of paint and torn newspaper adhering to the surface.

Although the wood, ash, was quite hard, it was also very brittle. The boat had been
preserved in the ground by being rapidly silted over and by subsequent waterlogging.
Examination of the timber showed, however, that, during the centuries after deposition,
the wood had undergone great changes by both chemical and biological attack (Fig. 3).
Hydrolosis of the cell wall constituents had occurred, causing them to break down.
Eventually, only a skeleton of the original wood remained, consisting mainly of lignin.
After excavation in 1863, as the boat was allowed to air dry from its waterlogged state, the
water in the wood cells was drawn by capillary action to the surface, where it evaporated.
As this water left the weakened cells, they collapsed, pulled inwards by the surface tension
of the retreating water. This caused cracking, shrinkage and warping of the boat, and built
up tensions and lines of weakness which eventually caused the boat to break up. This
shrinkage is irreversible because of the formation of chemical bonds between the collapsed
walls, effectively joining them together.

1 O’Callaghan, ‘On an ancient canoe discovered at Giggleswick’, J.B.A.A. 20 (1864), pp. 195-6. See p. 195.

2 O’Callaghan, 1864, p. 195.

3 T. Brayshaw, ‘British Canoe’, Collectanea Giggleswickiana (1887) (No. 9 in the Stackhouse series of local tracts).

4 T. T. Wildridge, ‘Ancient one tree boats of Northumbria’ in T. T. Wildridge (ed), Northumbria (1888), pp.
123-37. See pp. 132-4.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Fig. i. The Giggleswick Tarn area. Based, with permission, on the Ordnance Survey.

THE GIGGLESWICK TARN LOGBOAT

Fig. 2. The remains of the Giggleswick Tam logboat in 1975. ( Photograph National Maritime Museum )

Treatment

It was clear that the many fragments of the boat would stand a better chance of survival
joined together than they otherwise would. Re-assembling the pieces was also necessary if
deductions about the boat’s original shape and performance were to be made.

To permit a preliminary assessment of the boat and the problems of conservation, the
fragments were at first reassembled as close together as possible, using temporary supports
(Fig. 4). It was apparent that several pieces were missing, whilst some gaps were due to
warping and differential shrinkage. Examination of the wood suggested the following
treatment :

The fragments were cleaned with stiff brushes to remove the surface dirt. The tacky
coating proved difficult to dissolve, and even after cleaning with methanol, the wood
remained darkly stained. Because methanol was used, the cleaning had to be done in a fume
cupboard and protective clothing worn. The larger pieces would not fit in the cupboard
and were therefore dealt with in the open air. All this made the cleaning operation difficult,
and work on the boat was restricted to only a few hours each day. Eventually a reasonably
clean surface was achieved, and it became possible to identify and photograph toolmarks.
The surfaces and friable edges of the fragments were re-coated with a strong, non-tacky,
clear matt polyurethane resin which would not trap dirt but which would help protect the
surfaces from loss by abrasion.

Re-assembling the boat

The boat was then permanently re-assembled on a specially built pallet, using wooden
dowels (Fig. 5) and a polyester resin with an inert filler — ‘Plastic Padding’. This adhesive has
the major disadvantage of being irreversible, but this has to be balanced against its advant-
ages: strength, viscosity and setting time. It was also considered that it would be very
difficult to dismantle the boat without damage, even if a soluble resin were to be used.
Furthermore, it was obvious that good strong bonds were required if the fragments were to
hold together in boat form.

Early photographs and engravings of the boat5 proved very useful during reconstruction.
The bottom of the boat was first assembled, and the bow section fastened to this. The sides

5 Brayshaw, 1887; Wildridge, 1888.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Fig. 3. Fragment showing the poor surface condition and internal collapse of the wood.
Scale centimetric. ( Photograph National Maritime Museum)

were put together and used to determine the correct position of the stern, before it and the
sides were dowelled to the bottom.

The two longitudinal timbers were re-assembed, but it was not possible to attach them
to the boat as they had warped badly after excavation, and there was some doubt about their
precise original position. The transverse fittings at bow and stern were also not permanently
attached even though their positions were well defined, because this would have prevented
future examination of the worked surfaces of the boat and fittings, and, in addition, differen-
tial shrinkage between boat and fittings meant that the fastening holes could no longer be
aligned.

The sections of dowels which showed, where they spanned gaps, were coloured with a
PVA based paint so that they blended with the boat whilst still remaining obviously modern
additions. No attempt was made to fill gaps as it was unnecessary structurally, and might
only serve to confuse future investigators (Fig. 6).

THE GIGGLESWICK TARN LOGBOAT

Fig. 4. The boat temporarily re-assembled at Greenwich in 1976.
Photograph National Maritime Museum )

Research

Not all hollowed-out logs are logboats: they may, for example, be coffins, troughs,
sledges or chutes. In an imprecise context and without associated finds, the exact role of a
find may be difficult to determine — this is especially true of the shorter examples. However,
this artifact from Giggleswick Tarn, although only 2-45 m in length, is clearly a boat, as it
satisfies four of the criteria McGrail has postulated elsewhere:6

(i) found in a former watercourse,

(ii) boat-shaped ends,

(iii) fittings often associated with logboats,

(iv) bark and sapwood had been removed when the boat was built, as far as can now be
ascertained.

As the fragments were re-assembled, each piece was examined. The boat and its associated
fittings were then drawn at 1:10 scale, and an estimate of shrinkage made. Wood shrinks
differentially on drying, the longitudinal dimension remaining approximately constant.
Thus, whilst an excavated logboat’s length will remain unchanged, the depth and breadth
can be 10 to 25 per cent less after drying than when in use.7 With an estimated 10 per cent
shrinkage, a hypothetical reconstruction of the Giggleswick boat was drawn, with the
longitudinal timbers orientated in two slightly different ways (Fig. 7M and 7N). From this
drawing it was possible to calculate the boat’s performance.8

Brayshaw9 believed that the boat was ‘of Celtic or British workmanship’, built by an
‘old savage’. However, a sample from the outside of the log has been dated by Dr. Roy
Switsur of the Radiocarbon Dating Research Laboratory, Cambridge, to the fourteenth-
century A.D. (Q-1245: 615BPT40 = c. ad 1335).

6 S. McGrail, The Logboats of England and Wales ( 1978 A). National Maritime Museum Archaeological Series No. 4.
See Chapter 2.

7 McGrail, 1978A, Chapter 36.

8 S. McGrail, ‘A medieval Logboat from Giggleswick Tam, Yorkshire’ in P. Annis (ed), Ingrid and other Maritime
Studies (1978B). National Maritime Museum Monograph No. 36

r Brayshaw, 1887, p. 10.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Fig. 5. Dowels in position in the stern, which correspond with holes drilled in the edge
of a section of the port side. ( Photograph National Maritime Museum)

THE GIGGLESWICK TARN LOGBOAT

4-7

Fig. 6. Completed logboat in 1978, with the longitudinal timbers in the foreground.

(Photograph National Maritime Museum)

Interpretation — the boat , her capabilities and significance

The boat was built from a whole ash log of diameter riomat *5 m from the butt end
(the boat’s stern), tapering to -96 m at 2 m. Transverse fittings were treenailed at the ends to
prevent the boat from splitting (Figs. 6, 7). The larger, D-shaped, fitting covered the top of
the stern and was probably used as a seat. The bow timber has dovetail shaped ends and
fitted into a transverse groove so that its upper surface was flush with the boat.

The two longitudinal timbers were fastened by treenails to the outboard sides of the boat,
so that ‘their upper flat surfaces (were) flush with the gunwale’.10 Because of shrinkage and
distortion, it is not now possible to identify fastening holes in either fittings or boat. These
timbers near the top of the sides would deflect spray in a lop, and would increase the boat’s
stability at deep drafts when they were partly immersed. In addition, they would give
longitudinal strength to the boat.

Timbers such as these transverse and longitudinal fittings on the Giggleswick boat
seldom survive, and thus they and their corresponding patterns of fastening holes are of
great importance in interpreting other logboat finds which are more fragmentary.

It is a reasonable assumption that medieval and earlier logboats were used in the roles well
documented for recent use in Europe and elsewhere; ferrying, fishing, fowling and the
collection of reeds. A more precise use might be determined for the Giggleswick boat from
a study of her fourteenth-century environment and economic context. Stability calculations
show, however, that this logboat would be more suited to carrying heavy loads, stone or
ballast, rather than loads of low density. The boat’s theoretical performance has been
discussed in detail elsewhere:* 11 typical loads would have been

(a) With *15 m freeboard : 1 man and 154-164 kg stone

(b) With -06 m freeboard : 1 man and 289-294 kg stone

The boat was most probably propelled by a paddler seated on the stern or kneeling on the
bottom, or possibly by poling. Compared with other logboats assessed during the 1972-5

10 O’Callaghan, 1864, p. 196.

11 McGrail, 1978B.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Giggleswick Tarn - reconstruction

0 METRE

1 1 ! i _i 1

I T r

O FEET

Fig. 7. Reconstruction drawing of the boat after an allowance for shrinkage has been made.
Two alternative ways (M and N) of fitting the longitudinal timbers are shown.

( Photograph National Maritime Museum)

THE GIGGLBSWTCK TARN LOGBOAT

survey, this boat had slow to medium speed potential and low paddle power, with moderate
to poor manoeuvrability.

Notwithstanding this apparently mediocre performance in antiquity, this boat is extremely
important for the light its ample remains throw on medieval boatbuilding techniques. In
addition, its fourteenth-century date reinforces one of the important lessons drawn by
Wilson12 from the Kentmere boat, a nearby contemporary: the building of simple boat
forms persisted in Britain much later than has sometimes been assumed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We wish to acknowledge the helpful co-operation of the City Museum, Leeds, and the assistance of our colleagues
in the Archaeological Research Centre at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

12 D. M. Wilson, ‘A medieval boat from Kentmere, Westmorland’, Med. Arch, io (1966), pp. 81-8.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

TINSLEY ‘RENTALS’, 1336-1514

By David Postles

Summary Rentals of the manor of Tinsley near Sheffield, made for members of the Wentworth family, survive
from 1336, 1374, 1514 and two uncertain dates. These documents are transcribed in full and the tenancies and
services for which they provide evidence are discussed. Evidence for the assarting of Chapelwood is also indicated.

The documents edited below are termed ‘rentals’ for convenience. Some, however, may
more accurately be described as custumals. The clerks who wrote them did, nevertheless, call
them rentals. They are all to be found in the Wentworth Woodhouse muniments in
Sheffield City Libraries.1 It should also be added that they also include material extrinsic to
Tinsley, but are mainly concerned with Tinsley.

The transcription below is arranged in putative date order. The first rental is endorsed
variously in fifteenth-century hands as being of 1236 and 11 Edw. III. The head of the roll
was obviously by that time already rubbed and faded. Under ultra-violet light virtually the
whole of the style can be discerned. The reference to the part of William de Wentworth
establishes this rental as definitely being of 1336. William inherited half of the manor by
right of his wife, Isabel, on the death in 1327 of Walter de Tinsley. Walter died without
male issue with the consequence that the estate was divided amongst his two daughters,
Isabel and Joan.2

The second rental is clearly later than the first from the script. It is, however, within a
generation of 1336, as there are tenants common to both, principally John de Gotham. In
the 1336 rental, he appears under the rubric of the sub-tenants of the two bovates of Doylly.
In the second rental, there is no mention of Doylly. This adds support to the presumption
that the 1336 rental is the earlier. In it, Gotham’s lands are dispersed; he holds the Doylly
land, and lands formerly of Cecilia and William le taur’. The second rental has no reference
to these former tenants ; moreover, Gotham’s lands are now consolidated in a single para-
graph. All this would suggest further that the 1336 rental is the earlier, although not many
decades earlier. The third rental has a regnal year in the style (48 Edw. Ill), as does the last
(5 Henry VIII). The other, truncated rental would appear from the hand and internal
evidence to belong to the late fifteenth century.

The deficiencies of rentals and custumals are well known. As manorial records, they are
written entirely ex parte for the lord of the manor, recording only detail in which he was
interested. They do not consistently record changes of tenant, unless there is a reasonable
series of them. Usually, they do not record sub-tenancies or undersettles. Custumals tend
also to repeat services ad injinitum. It could well be that services in labour or kind enumerated
in the custumals are only theoretical obligations; that is, that in reality the lord has ‘sold’
or commuted the services for a cash payment. Given these qualifications, rentals and cus-
tumals remain an invaluable source for the economic and social structure of rural society
at its base.

Economically, there was little difference between free and unfree tenants. Both were

1 I am grateful to the Earl Fitzwilliam and his trustees and to the Director of Sheffield City Libraries for permission
to edit the rentals.

2 J. Hunter, South Yorkshire, II (1831), 32, gives this date (1327), following Gascoign, who professed to have seen
a ‘division’ of i Edw. III. Hunter expressed his scepticism of the date, which seems to have been justified. There is
in the Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments a ‘Participacio manerii de Tynneslowe’ dated Friday before Holy
Trinity, 10 Edw. Ill (1336): Sheffield City Libraries W.W.M. Cl-4a-b. Charters cited by Hunter for the early
fourteenth century also include witnesses who appear in the rental.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

stratified, some tenants holding a bovate or more, others holding down to a few roods or
selions In the 1336 rental, there was still an attempt to preserve the unit of the bovate. The
list of free tenants was thus punctuated with marginalia recording the number of bovates.
However, the attempt broke down with the two bovates of Doylly, for these had been
drastically fragmented. Undoubtedly, the bovates of freemen must have disintegrated at an
early stage, because of the freedom of devise of freemen. The integrity of the bovates of
unfree tenants is preserved throughout the rentals, but this may be a figment of the type of
record. Legally, unfree tenants had no power of devise, but holdings could be fragmented

y surrender and admission in the manorial court. Moreover, it is known that a village land
market had developed by the time of our first rental.3 It is precisely this kind of area, with a
high preponderance of free or semi-free tenants, where the land market of unfree tenants
would most likely occur.4 There may have been also a lesser tendency to record sub-tenants
of rmfree holdings than of free holdings. 1 he bovate had no doubt at one time been regarded
as the standard family holding,0 but its integrity in these rentals may only be a figment.

There was a wide stratification of sizes of holdings of the free tenants. There was also
some diversity of tenure and services. There were two serjeanty-tenures. The ‘riding’
service of William Hering in 13 36, reiterated through to 1514, seems to be an anachronism
even by 1336. This riding service could well be a survival of the twelfth-century equitatio,
the duty of early Anglo-Norman feudalism of escorting one’s lord from place to place.6
What is uncertain, however, is whether the service was actually exacted by 1336, or whether
it was commuted in fact for a cash payment. We may have here no more than the tendency
of custumals to repeat ad infinitum theoretical obligations. The same doubt may be cast on
the other serjeanty-tenure, the service of finding lodging for the lord in Tickhill when the
lord comes there to acquit castle-guard. Was castle-guard still being exacted or had it now
been commuted for a cash payment:' It is an interesting example, however, of a tenement

in one vill appertaining to a distant manor, particularly as the origins of the tenure are so
specific.

There is a certain homogeneity of the services of the remainder of the free tenants, in that
they all performed light agricultural services, and paid a cash rent. The light agrarian
services mainly comprised a little Lent (spring) ploughing, a little reaping, and a little work
on the mill-pond. The most distinctive feature of the services of the free tenants was
homage, suit of court (to the manorial court), and forinsec service. By forinsec service is
probably meant suit to the wapentake or county court.

The unfree tenants were variously described as tenants in bondagio (1336), custumarii
(second rental), and tenants ad voluntatem domini (1374). In 1374, they most commonly held
a bovate (nominally, at least), with a money rent of 2 s. Their distinctive customary service
( seruicium consuetum ) was boonwork and four days reaping with one man. Theoretically, the
boonwork should have been the characteristic service — uncertain as to quality and quantity
of work. Nevertheless, these characteristics had been lost; the number of boonworks owed
had been strictly defined. Moreover, by 1374, the boonworks had mostly been commuted
for a cash payment at Michaelmas. Only four tenants then owed boonworks in kind, and
these were enumerated at the end of the rental as if to emphasise their exceptional nature.
By and large, all customary services had by the fourteenth century been defined, rather
than being open to the lord s will. This seems most explicit when the rental records that
Walter ad caput ville holds in bondagio owing duo opera pro blado metendo tantum per duos dies.

3 C\N,L‘ Brooke & M- M- Postan, Carte Nativorum (Northants. Record Society, XX, i960); there is now an

extensive literature on this subject.

^ Hyams, The Origins of a Peasant Land Market in England,’ Economic History Review, series 2, 23 (1970),

See the perceptive remarks of Barbara Harvey, Westminster Abbey and its Estates (1977), 208—210.

F. M. Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism (repr. 1968), pp. 130 and 176-7.

,^n Bie significance of these terms, see P. Vinogradoff, Villainage in England (repr. 1968), 81-2; Pollock &
Maitland, History of English Law (ed. S. F. C. Milsom, 1968), I, 370-2.

TINSLEY ‘RENTALS’, I336-I514

The most striking feature of the customary services, however, is the lack of weekwork.
This may no longer be (or never have been?) necessary for the cultivation of the manorial
demesne.

From 1374, the estate insinuates itself Leases now begin to appear in the rentals. In the
second rental, some leases occur in an uncertain way; et conceditur ilia terra ad terminum implies
a novelty and uncertainty. So does et reddit firma. Two other tenants in that rental held ad
terminum. In 1374, there are a few more leases for terms of years or life, and even a reference
to tenure per cartam.

One other point of interest is the reference in the 1514 rental to the manor of le hey held
by John Weykersley. This was evidently regarded as a ‘sub-manor’ of the manor of Tinsley.
It was probably one of those small estates created by assarting and enclosing (hence /e hey)
which became known as a manor economically and customarily rather than legally, not
having the judicial and legal rights of manorial jurisdiction.8

Topography and tenants

Tinsley is situated in South Yorkshire, virtually equidistant between Sheffield and
Rotherham (SK 399909). It lies just below the 250 ft. (76 m) contour in the Don Valley,
slightly upriver from the confluence of Don and Rother. It is thus part of the Pennine
foothills which rise up from the Sheffield district, although on the fringe.

Feudally, it was one of the manors comprising the Honour or Liberty of Tickhill. The
descent of the manor has been described in essence by Hunter. 9 In 1086, the manor was held
of the Honour of Tickhill of Roger de Busli.10 Tinsley seems to have been one of those
manors denuded between 1070 and 1086 in order to repopulate more valuable manors of
the Honour which had been laid waste by the Normans in 1069. It was one of those Pennine
foothill villages which acted as a reservoir d’hommes for wasted villages on the Plain.* 11 The
value of Tinsley in 1066 had been ^4, but by 1086 this had declined to -£1. There was only
a single villein and 3 sokemen with a single plough in 1086; yet there were 5 fiscal carucates
(ad geldam) and there could be four ploughs (ubi iiii caruce possunt esse).

Gradually, the manor recovered. In 1334, Tinsley contributed £2 115. to the lay subsidy,
in comparison with adjacent Brinsworth (135.) and Handsworth (-£2 5s'.).12 One of the
redeeming influences may have been the meadows of the Don. In 1086, there were 10 acres
of meadow, although the rentals give the impression of much more extensive meadow in the
later middle ages. In the late fifteenth-century, the lord had his own meadow in severalty
(le chapell leys). 13 Chapelwood was another asset. Hunter suggests that the chapel was
founded as a private chapel-of-ease in the twelfth-century.14 The wood, however, was
probably natural woodland existing long before the chapel. It is almost certainly the wood
described in Domesday Book as being one league long by eight furlongs wide (1 \ m. by 1 m.
approximately). From the thirteenth century at least, the wood was being assarted for arable.
In the late thirteenth century, the principal tenant there was Roger Heryng, and Chapelwood
became associated with the Herings throughout the later middle ages.15 The Herings were

8 R. H. Hilton (ed.), Stoneleigh Leger Book (Dugdale Society, 24, i960), xxxiv-xxxv; B. K. Roberts, ‘A Study of
Medieval Colonisation in the Forest of Arden, Warwickshire’, Agricultural History Review, XVI (1968), 101-13.

9 South Yorkshire, II (1831), 3off.

10 Domesday Book (Record Commission, 1783), II, 319b.

11 T. A. M. Bishop, ‘The Norman Settlement of Yorkshire’, repr. in E. M. Carus-Wilson (ed.), Essays in Economic
History, II (1966 repr.), 7-8, esp. p. 8: ‘Colonists for what appears to have been recently reoccupied manors in the
north-west and north of his (Busli’s) fee were possibly derived from some of his manors, waste in 1086, in the ad-
jacent Pennine region near Sheffield . . .’

12 R. E. Glasscock (ed.), The Lay Subsidy of 1334 (British Academy, Records of Social and Economic History, new
series, 2, 1975), 393~4-

13 Sheffield City Libraries, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments (hereafter S.C.L., W.W.M.) Ci-20 (court roll,
4 Aug. 10 Henry VII).

14 South Yorkshire, II, 33.

15 For what follows, S.C.L. A Catalogue of Deeds at Wentworth Woodhouse, 224-6.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

usually known by the toponym de Capelwod. In 1479, John Hering of Staveley alienated the
holding there to Peter Fretcheville, lord of Staveley, who in 1484 sold it to John Swyft. In
1506, Chapelwood was described as alias Heryng Houses. In 1539, Thomas Swift alienated
the holding to Richard Fenton, and it was then described as a toft, 60 acres arable, 6 acres
of meadow, 20 acres of pasture, and 4 acres of wood in Capylwodd Field. The field-name
Capelwodfeldes also occurs in the 1514 rental. It can be deduced, therefore, that the colonisa-
tion or assarting of the wood for arable land had been extensive, and that, by the early
sixteenth century, the original wood had diminished greatly. Much of the assarting had
been done by the Hering family. Their land had no doubt been originally held in assarts in
seveialty, but the implication of the field-names of the early sixteenth century is that the
assarts were being absorbed into the common fields.

The Swifts, who acquired Chapelwood in 1484, were a rising family in the later middle
ages. I11 1539, Thomas Swift was styled gentleman. The rentals show that the Swifts had
always been larger tenants, holding at least one bovate and usually two or three. In the
middle of the fifteenth century, they supplemented their holdings by taking lands on short
leases. William Swift took a lease for 9 years of a messuage and two bovates formerly held
by Thomas de Gilberthorp, and John Swift took a lease for a similar term of a messuage and
bovate once held by the same Thomas.16 When the terms expired, however, the lease? were
not renewed by the Swifts.17 It was the acquisition of the Chapelwood in 1484 which
established the Swifts, replacing the Herings. John Swift, who bought Chapelwood, died a
decade after the acquisition, to be succeeded by his son, William, aged 30. 18

Evidence on the ‘field-system’ of Tinsley is difficult to find. It seems that in the late
fifteenth century, there were three open- or common-fields. Village byelaws entered on the
court roll of one year,19 refer to the repair of ditches and hedges (haya) in le Whetfeld before
All Saints and le Warfeld before Lady Day for the safety of the grain. From this, it can be
assumed that le IVhetfeld was sown with winter grain and le Warfeld with spring grain,
assuming one other field laid fallow.

RENTAL OF TINSLEY, 1336
(Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments Cl-5)

Rentale de Tynneslawe^ex parte Willelmi de Wynterwohrt de Anno domini m [cfcc tricesimo sexto.

Willelmus Hering de Capelwode tenet terram suam pro homagio et secta curie et reddit per annum ad predictum
festum 111.S. vi.d. et ibit ultra operarios domini per tres dies in autumpno ad cibuin domini et ultra operarios stagni
molendini si necesse fuit Et equita super equum suum propriuin cum domino loco armigeri si habeat equum et si
non habeat equum dominus inuentet sibi equum et veniet ad voluntatem domini cum sibi mandauerit.
ia bouata Johannes de Gotham tenit unam bovatam terre quondam Sessilie del [ ]h et reddit per annum ad
prefatos terminos ii.s. Et inveniat unam carucain ad manerium de Tyneslawe tempore seminis quadragesimalis.
Et unum messorem metentem per i diem in autumpno et unum operantem per i diem ad stagnum molendim del hey.
na bouata. Johannes de Gilberthorp tenet unam bouatam terre et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos ii.s. et
inueniet unam carucam ad predictum manerium et unum messorem metentem per i diem in autumpno et i
operantem ad stagnum molendini del heye.

iii bouata Johannes de Gotham unam beuatam terre quondam Willelmi le taur’ et reddit per annum ad eosdem
terminos xix.d. ob. et inueniet i carucamoer i diem et unum messorem per i diem et unum operantem ad stannum
molendini del hey per i diem.

vam Johannes de Gotham tenet de ii bouatis terre Roberti doylly vi acras et tres rodas terre et i rodam prati et reddit
per annum ad eosdem terminos x.d. ob. et sfacit seruicia predicta.

Robertus doylly tenet de eisdem lv viii acrarterre et ii acras et dimidiam et i rodam prati et preddit per annum ad
eosdem terminos xiii.d. ob. et facit seruicia pedicta.

16 S.C.L., W.W.M. Ci-13 (court roll, 15 March 32 Henry VI).

17 S.C.L., W.W.M. Ci-20 and S.C.L. Newman & Bond Collection 15 (court rolls of 18 Sept. 2 Edw. IV). The
court rolls give further evidence of the increase of leases between lord and tenant in the fifteenth century. They
record some 12 leases with terms of 20 years (2), 12 years (1), 10 years (3), and 9 years (6). The rolls are, however
rather sporadic and cursory.

18 S.C.L., W.W.M. Cl-20.

19 S.C.L., W.W.M. Cl-20.

TINSLEY ‘RENTALS’, I336-I514

Robertus carpentarius tenet de eisdem iii acras terre et i acrain prati et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos v.d.
Henricus Brwe tenet de eisdem i acram terre inGolderflatte et tres rodas in [ p et i rodam prati et reddit per

annum ad eosdem terminos ii.d. ob. qua.

Gilbertus del leghes tenet de eisdem ii acras terre et dimidiam et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos ii.d. ob.
Johannes del mapples tenet de eisdem i acram terre et ii acras et i rodam prati et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos
vi.d. [et iacet aput le hassoks]v

Alanus filius domini tenet de eisdem i rodam terredet reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos [?] quartenum.
Ricardus Horn tenet de eisdem i rodam terre et redit per annum ad eosdem terminos quartenum.

[Johannes Swift]vl tenet de eisdem i rodam terre et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos quartenum.

Willelmus de Morelay tenet de eisdem i rodam terre et dimidiam et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos
quartenum et dimidiam.

[Rogerus filius Alani tenet de eisdem i rodam terre et dimidiam et reddit per annum adv* eosdem terminos
quartenum et dimidium.

Ricardus Pati tenet de eisdem dimidiam rodam et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos dimidium quartenum.
Ricardus Ward tenet de eisdem dimidiam rodam terre et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos dimidium quartenum.
Willelmus Syward et Johannes Gurri tenent de eisdem iiii celiones terre [iacentes apud castellumvii et redduntper
annum ad eosdem terminos i [ ].v^

Summa xviii.s. iiii.d. ob. quart.

Redditus de Brinsford de feodo de Strafford* ad
festa Pentecosti et sancti Martini.

Johannes de Gotham tenet terrain de WaddiP per annum ad festa Pentecosti et sancti martini i.d.

Adam Bercarius reddit per annum pro terra quam tenet ad eosdem terminos x.d. ob.

Rogerus filius Alani reddit per annum pro terra de WaddiP quam tenet ad eosdem terminos iiii.d. ob.

Adam carectarius tenet medietatem dimidii tofti et sex acras et iii rodas terre et iii rodas prati ad uoluntatem domini
et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos vi.s. viii.d.

[Ricardus parot tenet ad uoluntatem medietatem tofti et bouate terre quondam Thome done et reddit per annum
ad eosdem terminospi iii.s. iiii.d.

[Willelmus Cowper de Brynsforth pro terra ob. quart. ]v

Summa viii.s.

Pratum quod Johannes de Mappeles tenet de bouatis Roberti Doyli una acra et dimidia iacet apud le hassolt et iii
rode iacent in le Casteltong’ et i acra et dimidia iacet iuxta [ p inter terram quondam Johanni de Saham et

aquam de don.

Memorandum quod Adam Tagg et Johannes Saule tenent molendinum de Tyneslawe et reddunt pro anno integro
a die sabbati proxima post festum Apcstolicorum Petri et Pauli ad finem termini iiii. Ii.

Et Adam Tagg tenuit molendinum del hey a die Iouis ante festum sancte Trinitatis usque ad festum sancti martini
nunc preteriti pro xiii.s. iiii.d.

[Memorandum quod Adam Tagg et Johannes Saule tenent molendinum de Teneslauwe a festo Pentecosti per
annum sequentem pro xliii.s. iiii.d.

Item Adam et Johannes tenent molendinum del heye a festo Pentecosti per annum sequentem pro xiii.s. iiii.d.
scilicet a Pentecosto anno regni regis Edwardi tercii a conquestu undecimo.

Prouisum quod boscum ligentdx

[ p vi.d. et viii precarias et facit ix rodas palicie et stagnum molendini

p Rogerus Page et Anabila Horn reddunt per annum [ p Robertus le Grubb

tenet iii bouatas et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos ix.s. et xvi precarias et facit xviii rodas palicie et stagnum
molendini.

Ricardus Perin tenet in bondagio ii bouatas terre et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos ix.s. et xvi precarias et
facit xvii rodas palicie et stagnum molendini.

Adam Dombealy tenet in bondagio i bouatain terre et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos iiii.s. viii.d. et xii
precarias et facit ix rodas palicie et stagnum molendini et dabit i gallinam et i [ p ad natalem et xv oua ad

Pascham.

Adam Dande tenet in bondagio i bouatam terre et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos iiii.s. vi.d. et viii precarias
et facit ix rodas palicie et stagnum molendini.

Walterus ad capud ville pro terris quas tenet in bondagio dabit i gallinam ad natalem et [ p oua ad Pascham et
duo opera pro blado metendo tantum per duos dies.

Adam carectarius tenet in bondagio i bouatam terre et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos iiii.s. vi.d. et viii
precarias et facit ix rodas palicie et stagnum molendini.

Robertus [ p tenet in bondagio i bouatam terre et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos iiii.s. vi.d. et viii

precarias et facit ix rodas palicie et stagnum molendini.

Adam Tagg tenet in bondagio i bouatam terre et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos v.s. ii.d. et [ p precarias
et ix rodas palicie et stagnum molendini.

Ricardus Pokoc iii.s. iiii.d.

Summa lix.s. vi.d.

Coterelli

Ricardus Suift pro i messuagio iii.s.

Maria Jamber tenet i cotagium et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos [ ]u
Emma de Elmet tenet i cotagium et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos ii.s. vi.d.

p et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos^s.v*d.
Juliana Halfard tenet i cotagium et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos ii.s.

Ricardus Faber tenet ad uoluntatem unam perticatam terre et reddit per annum iiii.d.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Summa [ ]iJ.s. vi.d.

Summa totalis vii.li. x.s. iiii.d. [ob. qua.]x
De quibus [ ]“ molendini per annum pro parte Willelmi

De redditibus liberorum de termino pasche

De redditibus liberorum de termino natiuitatis sancti Johannis baptiste

De redditibus liberorum de termino sancti michaelis

De redditibus de termino pentecosti

De redditibus liberorum de termino sancti martini

De redditibus natiuorum et coterellorum de termino pentecosti

De redditibus eorundem de termino sancti martini

Summa

xlvi.s. viii.d.
iiii.s. ii.d.
iiii.s. ii.d.
v.s. xi.d. ob. qua.
v.s. viii.d.
v.s. viii.d.
xxxi.s. x.d.
xxxi.s. x.d.

precariarum iiiixx et sex precaria

vrru-1 c • J J •• rodarum palicie iiiixx et x roda

Wibii Star cepit de domino unum mesuagium et [ ]u perticos et reddit per annum xviii.d.

[Anno domini mocco trecesimo sexto] xi

[Anno regni regis Edwardi iii a conquestu undecimojm

i. Interpolated, but not legible in MS.

ii. MS. illegible.

iii. The following two bovates added to the previous three.

iv. Sc. of these two bovates.

v. Added later.

vi. Cancelled.

vii. Added in superscript.

viii. Not qualified in MS.

ix. Added later.

x. Cancelled.

xi. In later hands.

RENTAL OF TINSLEY ET AL., N.D.

(Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments Cl-3)

Redditus assise et seruicium debitum manerio de Tynneslawe per liberos tenentes parti contingentis Henrici de
Tynneslawe.

Orgrave. Heredes Roberti de Veteri Ponte debent reddere per Annum Henrico de Tynneslawe et heredibus suis
stagno molendini de Kymberworth pro parte sua x.s. argenti ad festum sancti michaelis et ad pascham.

Radulphus de Horbiry debet eidem homagium et sectam curie pro hamiletto de Orgraue et reddit per annum eidem
Henrico et heredibus viii.s. Item tenentes terre in Orgraue debent arruram manerio supradicto per unum diem per
annum cum tali arrura quam habeant sicut solebant. Item quilibet domum tenens debet metere per unum diem in
Autumpno apud manerium de Tynneslawe. Et debent in venire unum hominem per unum diem in anno ad faciendum
stagnum molendini super Roder.

Catclyf. Johannes de Treton debet homagium Henrico et heredibus suis et sectam curie pro iii bouatis terre in
Herwyk et in Hyll et reddit per annum unum speruarium vel xii.d. ad festum sancti martini.

Item idem tenet in katteclif xvi bouatas terre pro xvi.s. Item quilibet tenens [sic] terram in katteclif debent arruram
per unum diem manerio de Tynneslawe cum tali arrura quam habeant sicut solebant et omnes domum tenentes
debent metere per unum diem in Autumpno et facere stagnum molendini super Roder per unum diem in anno.
Adam de Wadeslay et Thomas Swyft debent homagium et sectam curie et tenent duas bouatas terre in Brinsforth
et reddunt iiii.s. per annum. Item debent arrare cum carucis quas habeant per unum diem in anno. Item debent
metere per unum diem in autumpno et facere stagnum molendini super Roder per unum diem.

Willelmus Haryng debet homagium et sectam curie et tenet unam bouatam terre versus meridionalem partem pro
in s- vi.d. redditu per annum ad festa sancti michaelis et purification^ beate marie et ad festum Nativitatis sancti
Johannis. Item debet custodire operanos per tres dies in Autumpno ad cibum domim. Item debet esse ultra operarios
molendini si necesse fuit. Item debet equitare cum domino loco armigeri super equum proprium si habeat et si non
habeat dominus inueniet sibi equum et veniet ad voluntatem domini cum sibi mandauerit.

Johannes de la hay debet homagium sectam curie pro manerio suo de le hay et reddit per annum dimidiam marcam
ad festum sancti michaelis. Y^illelmus de Gatham tenet viii acras terre in le holm5 de Brinsford super Don et reddit

xii.d. ad festum Nativitatis beate marie. Willelmus Clarel de Tykehul tenet unum toftum in Tykehul et reddit
unum par cirothecarum ad pentecostem. Item debet ipse et heredes sui inuenire domino hospicium in villa de
Tykehul cum venerit ibidem ad faciendum wardam castri de Tykehull.

In manu Roberti Dayly.

Henricus Brinsforst debet homagium et sectam curie et forinsecum et tenet unum mesuagium et i dimidiam bouatam
terre in eadem et reddit ii.s. vi.d. per annum ad duos terminos videlicet af [sir] festum sancti michaelis et ad pascham.
Radulphus de Waddehil debet homagium et sectam curie et forinsecum et tenet unam bouatam et dimidiam terre
in Brin’ cum uno mesuagio et reddit per annum viii.s. ad festum pentecosti et ad festum sancti martini.

Robertas filius hugonis de mikelbring tenet unum toftum et unum croftum et unam acram terre in miklebring per
homagium et seruicia et forinsecum et reddit iiii.s. per annum scilicet ad pentecost’ et ad festum sancti martini.
Rogerus Swyft tenet iii acras ad terminum in villa de Brinsforth et reddit per annum xxii.d. ad pent’ et ad festum
sancti martini. Item dictus Rogerus tenet dimidiam tofti pro i.d. per annum videlicet ad Natalem domini.

Henricus de Brinsforth tenet unum toftum quod aliquando fuit Roberti de Hertyl et reddit ii.s. vi.d. medietatem
ad pent’ et aliam medietatem ad festum sancti martini et conceditur ilia terra ad terminum.

TINSLEY ‘RENTALS’, I336-I514

Nicolas de Hertehil tenet [sic] tenet unarn bouatam terre quam aliquando fuit Roberti de Hertehil pro vii.s. et
reddit firma.

Alanus filius Eue tenet unam bouatam terre ad terminum et reddit viii.s. ad pent’ et ad festum sancti martini et facit
forinsecum.

Rogerus Swyft tenet i bouatam terre et reddit viii.s. per annum videlicet ad pent’ et ad festum sancti martini et facit
forinsecum seruicium.

Hec sunt seruicia debita custumariorum spectantes parti
Henrici de Tynneslawe.

Heredes Hugonis de Catteclif tenet unam bouatam terre in Katteclif pro iii.s. reddit dictum seruicium ad pent’ et ad
festum sancti martini faciendum consuetum seruicium pertinentem dicto manerio.

Robertus Kide de Tynneslawe tenet unam bouatam terre pro iii.s. ad pent’ et ad festum sancti martini faciendum
consuetum seruicium dicto manerio.

Leticia de eadem tenet i bouatam terre in eadem villa pro ii.s. ad terminos predictos. Item facit seruicium consuetum.
Item dicta Leticia tenet i toftum pro viii.d. per annum ad dictos terminos et metet per iiiior dies in autumpno cum i
homine et dabit ii gallinas ad Natalem domini et xv oua ad pascham.

Radulphus de lactona tenet i bouatam terre pro vi.s. ad terminos predictos et facit seruicium consuetum pertinentem
dicto manerio.

Johannes Base de eadem tenet i bouatam terre pro iii.s. ad terminos predictos et facit seruicium consuetum ut
dictum est.

Robertus filius prepositi tenet unam bouatam terre pro ii.s. per annum ad dictos terminos et facit consuetum
seruicium ut predictum est.

Batte de la venelle tenet i bouatam terre pro ii.s. per annum ad predictos terminos facit seruicium consuetum ut
dictum est.

Johannes le Couper de eadem tenet unam bouatam terre pro iis per annum ad dictos terminos et facit seruicium
consuetum ut dictum est.

Alicia Dande tenet unam bouatam terre pro ii.s. per annum ad dictos terminos et facit seruicium consuetum dicto
manerio pertinentem.

Hugo molendinarius tenet i bouatam pro ii.s. per annum ad dictos terminos et facit seruicium consuetum ut dictum
est.

Item tenet unum toftum pro ix.d. per annum ad dictos terminos et metet per iiiior dies in autumpno cum uno
homine et dabit ii gallinas ad Natalem domini et xv oua ad pascham.

Robertus de la Mor’ tenet unam bouatam pro ii.s. ad dictos terminos et facit seruicium consuetum sicut predictum
est.

Item tenet unum toftum pro viii.d. per annum ad terminos dictos et metet per iiiior dies in autumpno cum uno
homine et dabit ii gallinas ad Natalem domini et xv oua ad pascham.

Willelmus le Cimerur’ de eadem tenet unum dimidium toftum pro viii.d. per annum ad dictos terminos.

Susana de Capelwod tenet unam bouatam terre pro ii.s. per annum ad predictos terminos et facit seruicium consuetum
sicut predictum est.

Johannes filius Matilde de eadem tenet unam bouatam pro ii.s. per annum ad dictos terminos et facit seruicium
consuetum sicut consuetum est.

Redditus assise et seruicia debita manerio de Hoton per liberos tenentes.

Heres Willelmi filii Johannis de Tikel tenet unum toftum in eadem et reddit xii.d. per annum ad pascham et ad
festum sancti michaelis.

Johannes de Seltona tenet ix bouatas terre in Byllinglay pro homagio secta forinseco et reddit ix.s. per annum ad
pascham et ad festum sancti michaelis.

Willelmus filius Roberti Hund’ tenet unam bouatam terre et quartern partem unius bouate terre pro homagio et
secta forinseco et reddit per annum ii.s. x.d. ad festum pentecosti et ad festum sancti martini. Item dictus Willelmus
xiiii.d. de alia parte. Item reddit viii.d. preter hoc per annum et terciam partem unius obuli.

Willelmus de Wrangebroc’ tenet unam dimidiam bouate terre pro homagio secta et forinseco et reddit ii.s. per
annum medietatem ad pent’ et aliam medietatem ad festum sancti martini. Item reddit iiii.d. per annum pro alio
seruicio.

Robertus filius Lamberti tenet i bouatam pro homagio secta forinseco et reddit vi.s. per annum ad dictos terminos.
Item dictus Robertus reddit viii.d. per annum pro alio seruicio et terciam partem unius obuli.

Seruicia custumariorum. Heres Thome le Muner reddit iii qua’ ad festum purifications beate marie pro [ ]*

Willelmus filius Thome le monner tenet unum toftum et reddit ii.s. vi.d. ad dictos terminos.

Robertus prisbiter reddit xx.d. pro uno tofto.

Willelmus filius ydonei reddit ii.s. pro uno tofto ad pent’ et ad festum sancti martini.

Robertus Dosinger tenet unum toftum et reddit xxvi.d. per annum ad dictos terminos.

Thomas Edelyn tenet unam bouatam terre et reddit iii.s. per annum medietatem ad pent’ et medietatem ad festum
sancti martini et faciet seruicium et consuetudines pertinentes dicto manerio.

Item idem dictus Thomas reddit viii.d. per annum et terciam partem unius obuli.

Adam Bugge tenet unam bouatam terre et reddit iii.s. per annum ad dictos terminos et faciet seruicium pertinentem
dicto manerio de Hoton.

Item dictus Adam reddit viii.d. per annum et terciam partem unius obuli.

Andreas de Rauenfeld tenet unam bouatam terre et reddit iii.d. per annum scilicet ad eosdem terminos faciendum
seruicium debitum. Item dictus Andreas reddit viii.d. et [ ]u obuli.

Hec sunt seruicia qua Johannes de Gotham debet ad manerium de Tynneslawe videlicet
pro terra quam tenet in Ouerthorp de feodo de Tikhyll del bordland fidelitatem et hoinagium qua terra diuisa fuit
inter octo sorores unde dictus Johannes tenet quinque partes sororum et dimidiam pro qua debet arare per unum
diem talem aruram quam pertinet tante [sic] terra et dimidiam falcationis in autumpno.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

pro terra Roberti de Hartley et [51c] arabit cum medietatem tercie partis unius caruce et habebit unuin [ ]di

ad stagnum molendini de le hay usque ad nonamdv Item reddit per annum pro eadem terra ix.d. quart’ ad tres
terminos.

Item tenet unam bouatam terre in Overthorp quam [?] Mayr Johannes [ ]v pro ii.s. per annum et unum

hominem metentem per unum diem et habebit unum hominem ad stagnum molendini de hay per unum diem et
molet ad vicesimum vas.

Item metet per unum diem in autumpno pro tofto ex parte boriali Bate hurre et faciet stagnum molendini et molet
ad vicesimum vas.

Item pro terra Willelmi de Penyston debet per annum ii.s. vi.d. ad pascham et ad festum sancti michaelis.

Item pro alia terra quam tenet de terra Willelmi de Penyston ii.d. per annum ad pent’ et ad festum sancti martini.
Item pro una pecia terre que vocatur [ ]vi xii.d. die Natiuitatis beate marie.

Ilia bouata terre quam Beatrix filia Willelmi de Tynneslawe habuit ex dono patris sui debet per [ ]vii

Johanni de Gotham xix.d. videlicet ad pent ix.d. et ad festum sancti Johannis Baptiste i.d.et ad festum sancti martini
ix.d.

i. MS. blank.

ii. MS. blank.

iii. MS. blank; perhaps Iwminetn omitted.

iv. Until 3 p.m., i.e. the ninth hour of a day commencing at 6 a.m.

v. MS. blank.

vi. MS. blank.

vii. MS. blank; perhaps maims omitted.

RENTAL OF TINSLEY ET AL., 1374
(Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments Ci-6)

Rentale de Tyneslow factum ibidem die inartis in priina septimana Quadragesime anno regni regis Edwardi tercii
post conquestum Anglie xl.viii.

Tynslow. Johannes Swift tenet ad voluntatem doinini unum mesuagium et duas bouatas terre et reddit per annum
ix.s. unde ad terminum Pentecosti iiii.s. vi.d. et ad terminum sancti martini iiii.s. vi.d.

Idem Johannes reddit per annum pro precariis ad terminum michaelis ii.s.

Idem Johannes tenet libere unum mesuagium et unam bouatam terre et reddit per annum xii.d. unde ad Pentecost’
vi.d. et martin’ vi.d.

Willelmus Milner tenet ad voluntatem dimidiam cuiusdam mesuagii et dimidiam bouatam iii rodarum et dimidie
terre et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos per equales porciones iiii.s.

Ricardus de Medoucrolt tenet ad voluntatem unum mesuagium unam bouatam terre et quamdam parcellam terre
et reddit inde per annum ad eosdem terminos per equales porciones vi.s. Idem Ricardus debet pro precariis ad
erminum michaelis xi.d.

Willelmus Swift tenet ad voluntatem unum mesuagium unam rodam et dimidiam terre reddendo inde per annum
ad eosdem terminos per equales porciones ii.s.

Idem Willelmus tenet ad voluntatem dimidiam acram terre reddendo per annum ad eosdem terminos per equales
porciones v.d.

Idem Willelmus tenet unam placeam prati in le Tusshal reddendo per annum ad eosdem terminos per equales
porciones ii.s.

Idem Willelmus tenet unum mesuagium et unam bouatam terre reddendo inde per annum ad eosdem terminos
iiii.s. vi.d.

Idem Willelmus tenet et reddit per annum pro precariis ad festum michaelis xii.d.

Ricardus Swift tenet ad voluntatem unum mesuagium et iii bouatas terre reddendo inde per annum xiii.s. vi.d. unde
ad terminum Pentecosti vi.s. ix.d. et ad terminum martini vi.s. ix.d.

Idem Ricardus debet annuatim pro precariis ad terminum michaelis ii.s.

Willelmus Horum tenet ad terminum anno rum unum mesuagium et reddit per annum ad terminos Pentecosti et
martini per equales porciones iii.s.

Johanna Bell tenet ad voluntatem unum mesuagium reddendo per annum ad eosdem terminos per equales porciones
iii.s.

Willelmus filius Thome tenet ad voluntatem unum mesuagium in Capelwod reddendo per annum ad eosdem
terminos per equales porciones xi.d.

Johannes del Wod tenet ad voluntatem unam placeam terre vocatam Bukdarnall’ reddendo per annum ad eosdem
terminos iiii.s.

Willelmus filius Ricardi tenet libere unam placeam terre vocatam Ranffeld reddendo per annum ad terminos
michaelis et sancti Andree per equales porciones xii.d.

Idem Willelmus tenet ad terminum anno rum duas bouatas terre et Gileswod reddendo per annum ad terminos
Pentecosti et sancti martini per equales porciones xii.s.

Robertus de Gilberthorp tenet ad voluntatem unum mesuagium et unam bouatam terre reddendo ad eosdem
terminos per equales porciones vi.s.

Ricardus Aleinson tenet ad voluntatem unum croftum vocatum Chambrecroft reddendo ad eosdem terminos per
equales porciones x.d.

Robertus Gilberthorp tenet unum gardinum vocatum [ ]* reddendo per annum ad eosdem terminos iiii.d.

Orgraue. Robertus de Puknall tenet in Orgraue certam terram et tenementum et reddit per annum iiii.s. unde ad
terminum Purificationis beate marie xvi.d., ad terminum nativitatis sancti Johannis xvi.d. et ad terminum sancti
michaelis xvi.d.

TINSLEY ‘RENTALS’, I336-I514

Brynnesford. Johannes Bate tenet in Brynnesford terrain et tenementum et reddit per annum ii.s. unde ad terminum
Purificationis viii.d., ad terminum nativitatis sancti Johannis viii.d. et ad terminum michaeiis viii.d.

Robertus de Mundesder tenet terrain et tenementum et reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos per equales porciones
ii.s. ix.d.

Katerina Doyle tenet terrain et tenementum reddendo per annum ad eosdem terminos per equales porciones iii.d.
Willelmus Warde tenet terram et tenementum reddendo per annum ad eosdem terminos per equales porciones
vii.d. ob.

Johannes del Mapples reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos per equales porciones vi.d.

Johannes del Wod’ tenet unam placeam vocatam le heyfeld reddendo per annum ad terminum michaeiis xl.d.
Ricardus Aleinson tenet per cartam certam terram et tenementum et reddit per annum xv.d. unde ad terminum
Pentecosti vii.d. ob. et ad terminum martini vii.d. ob.

Ricardus Wright tenet ad terminum vite sue unum mesuagium et unam bouatam et dimidiam terre reddendo ad
eosdem terminos vii.s. vi.d.

Ricardus Kukinan tenet ad terminum annorum unum mesuagium reddendo per annum ad eosdem terminos per
equales porciones ii.s.

Willelmus Wyot reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos per equales porciones i.d. ob.

Thomas Wright reddit per annum ad eosdem terminos i.d. ob. qua.

Alicia Brake reddit per annum ob. qua. unde ad terminum Purificationis qua’, ad terminum nativitatis sancti
Johannis qua’ et ad terminum michaeiis qua’.

Precaria. Ricardus Wright debet unum precarium in autumpno.

Ricardus Swift debet unum precarium in eodem.

Willelmus Horum debet unum precarium in eodem.

Ricardus de Medoucroft debet unum precarium in eodem.

Summa totalis C.s. xix.d. ob. qua. Unde ad terminos
Pentecosti xl.s. xxi.d. ob. [sic]

Nativitatis sancti Johannis iii.s.iiii.d. ob. qua.

Michaeiis x.s. viii.d. ob. qua.

Martini xl.s. xxi.d. ob. [sic]

Andree vi.d.

Purificationis iii.s. iiii.d. ob. qua.

i. MS. illegible; possibly lousyerd.

RENTAL OF TINSLEY, N.D.

(Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments Cl -7)

Rentale de Tynslowe factum ibidem.

Thomas Reresby tenet libere in Tynslow unam placeam terre vocatam Sydalf et reddit ad festum sancti michaeiis
xii.d.

Willelmus Clarell tenet libere ii partes clausure vocate le haye in Tynslowe et reddit ad terminum v.d.

Johannes West de Rotheram tenet terciam partem eiusdem per seruicia predicta.

Willelmus Peyryn tenet libere in eadem unum mesuagium et unam bouatam terre et reddit ad terminum ii.s. cum
precariis.

Willelmus Cuxforth tenet manerium de Tynslaw et reddit ad terminum xlvi.s. viii.d.

Ricardus Nuthurst tenet ad voluntatem unum mesuagium et i bouatam terre et reddit ad terminum xl.d.
fohannes Heryng tenet ibidem ad voluntatem i clausuram vocatam Cappylwodclose et reddit ad terminum v.s.

RENTAL OF TINSLEY, 1514
(Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments Cl-22)

Rentall de tynneslaw off Thomas Wenworth the feyth yer off ye reyn off Kyng Henry the viiith
Thomas Clayton ffor ye maner off Tynneslaw viii marcas

William knolls thre meystedes and vii oxganges off land and a halff oxgange off ye meyne oxgange and gyfyng
be ye yer xliiii.s.

William Sweyfte for Capelwodfeldes v nobylles iii.s. iiii.d. and ffor leys beffor ys door viii.d. ffor a yerde yt hys
laythe syd ii.d.

Pvycard Thules a meys and certen landes per annum x.s.

Wylliam Sweyfte ffor a sotheche and a laythe vi.s.

Wylliam Sweyfte ffor landes off Heryng de capelwod debet homagium et sectam curie et tenet unam bouatam terre
usque meridionalem partem carnpi sui pro iii.s. vi.d. reddendo per annum ad festum sancti michaeiis et purificationis
beate marie et ad festum Nativitatis sancti Johannis baptiste. Debet custodire operarios per iii dies in autumno ad
cibum domini. Item debet esse ultra operarios stagni molendini si necesse fuerit. Item debet equitare cum domino
loco armigeri super equum proprium si habeat et si non habeat dominus inueniet sibi equum et veniet ad voluntatem
domini cum sibi mandauerit.

Item Wylliam Swyfte ffor messengere thyng de Tynneslaw tenet unam bouatam terre in eadem et reddit xii.d. et
debet ferinsecum.

Jon Weykersley ffor hayfeld debet homagium et sectam curie pro manerio suo de le hey et reddit per annum
iii.s. iiii.d.

Person Sweyfte for gelberthrope land in Tynneslaw reddit per annum i.d.

The Herr of Wylliam Cotham tenet peciam terre vocatam Sydall super le Don et reddit per annum xii.d. ad
nativitatem beate marie virginis.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Nicoles Morton ffor land off Clarell de tykhyll tenet unum croftum in Tykhyll et reddit unum par’ cirocetecarum
ad I entecost . Item debet ipse et heiedes sui muenire domino hospicium in villa de Tykhyll cum venerit ibidem ad
faciendum wardam de castello de Tykhyll. The herr Roberti filift Hugonis de mykylbryng tenet unum toftum et
unum croftum et unam acram terre in mykelbryng pro homagio et servicio et forynseco et reddit iiiiors. per annum.
Heyrll11 oft Schowrbere ffor Dolyghy de Brynisforth unum mesuagium et unam dimediam bouatam terre in eadem
in ye holdyng oft Wylliam Bromelle reddit per annum ii.s.

Thomas Swyfte debet homagium et sectam curie et tenet iias bouatas terre in Brynsforth et reddit iiiors. per annum.
Item debet arrare cum carucis quas habet per unum diem in anno. Item debet metere per unum diem in autumno
et facere stagnum molendinum [s/c] per unum diem in anno.

Rauff Reysbe tenet terram et tenementum [quos] nuper fuerunt in tenura Radulphi Waddyll’ videlicet unam bouatam
et dimidiam terre in Brynisforth et reddit per annum octo solidos in ye holdyng off herre Pallar iiii.s.

John Redfer haldes a nacur oft land in feld off Brinisforth bottyng off111 Waddyll mor reddit per annum i.d. ob.
Mylnschyp for Brakland ffor on acer in goldflat iii rod in schyrclyff et i rod meddew et reddit per annum ii.d. ob.
qua.

Chapman ffor treton land tenet unum mjessuagium] et unam bouatam terre in Catclyff et debet homagium et
reddit unam libram cumini ad Natalem domini iii.d.

Johannes coke ffor gylberthrop land in Brynsforth videlicet i bouatam terre et reddit per annum ii.s.

George Weynwrygth ffo coleg land unum messuagium per annum i.d.

Ricard Swyfte brygsark land tenet iii acras terre in villain de Brynsforth et reddit per annum xxii.d. ad pentecost’
et festum m’lv. Item dictus Rycardus tenet dimediam tofti pro uno denario ad natalem domini [et uno denario ad
pentecost]i. ii. iii. iv. v.

Wylliam hynyschyff for a yerd viii.d.

Wylliam hyngram for land in Brynnesforth and a yerd xviii.d.

The heyrll off schrwsber tenandes in orgreyff Jon Bayt and Wylliam Roos iiii.s.
yis wer tenandes afor [yes]vi vii. Thomas Walkar and Wylliam pugnall.

The heyrll off Schrowsber for land off herre orgrayff in orgreyff ii meyssus and certen land in ye holdyng off
Thomas Walkar Wylliam pugnall et reddit per annum iiii.s.

Wylliam person tenet messuagium et duas bouatas terre in Catclyff ad voluntatem per annum xii.s.

Summa xii.li. xiii.d.

[TherV11 hugonis Sywarde et WiUelmi Gurry pro iiiior selionibus terre iacentibus in Casteltonges etredduntper
annum i.d.]

The fire Rent off catclyff of oxeganges belongyng to the maner off tynnslaw.

Wylliam Swath for iii oxganges iii.s. which was chapman land.

Item Rychard herryng for Agland lande for ii oxgang of land ii.s.

Item Thomas Penyston for ii oxgang of land ii.s.

Item Robert Cudworth for i oxgang of land xii.d. sometyme mynstyre land.

Item John Smyth for i oxgang of land of therle of Shrewesbury xii.d.

Item Robert Walker ffor i oxgang of land sometyme Smyth land xii.d.

Item Rychard Cudworth for i oxgang of land and thurd part of another oxgang of land tenant to John Eyre xvi.d.
Item Thomas Okys for ii oxgang of land and thurd part of another oxgang of land tenant to the erle of Shrewysbyery

ii.s. iiii.d.

Item Rychard capylwod for ii oxgang of land and thurd part of another off [x/c] oxgang of land ii.s. iiii.d. wher of
one oxgange his awne and ye other oxgange ys ye erle of Shrewsburys and in ye tenure of ye seyd caplewood.

Summa totalis xvi oxgang xvi.s.

Rentale de Tynslow made ye vth yere of henry ye eyght.

i. MS. has filius.

ii. Sc. the Earl of Shrewsbury.

iii. Sc. butting on.

iv. Could be either Michaelmas or Martinmas.

v. Added later.

vi. Cancelled. The tenor of this is: ‘These were the tenants before . .

vii. Sc. the heir.

yiii. In a different hand.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

6 1

THE ELAND MURDERS, 1350-1 : A STUDY
OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND

FEUD

ByJ. M. Kaye

Summary The story of the murder of Sir John Eland and his son by Adam Beaumont and others in revenge for
his killing of their fathers 15 years before is narrated in a sixteenth-century ballad. This tale is compared with all the
documentary evidence for these events, which happened in 13 50-1. The composer of the ballad is shown to have
preserved some authentic details but to ignore or suppress more important facts. The ballad, a largely fictitious
narrative, was intended as a warning against feuds directed towards the Yorkshire gentry, and especially to Sir
Henry Savile, who in the 1530s was quarrelling bitterly with Sir Richard Tempest.

I THE ELAND LEGEND AND THE LITERARY SOURCES

On 29 October 1350 Sir John Eland, a Yorkshire justice of the peace, was murdered at
Brighouse by a gang which included Adam Beaumont, William, son of Thomas of Lock-
wood, William of Quarmby, of Hornby, and Thomas, son of Thomas Lascy. A few months
later the same gang murdered John, a son of Sir John Eland. The murders form the founda-
tion of a legend known to West Riding historians as the ‘Eland Feud’. The legend first
appeared in writing in the form of an anonymous doggerel ballad, dated by Whitaker1 to
the later part of Henry VIII’s reign. Later in the sixteenth, or possibly in the early-seventeenth
century, a prose version of the story, ‘The discourse of the slaughter of Eland, Beaumont,
Lockwood, Quarmby etc.,’ made its appearance, adding further embellishments and a
continuation of the ballad narrative but derived, for the most part, from the ballad alone.
The ballad was first printed by Watson,2 in 1775, and subsequently by Whitaker,3 Crabtree4
and Horsfall Turner,5 from a copy made in about 1650 by John Hopkinson, the Yorkshire
antiquarian; this version has 124 four-line stanzas. Another version, in only 111 stanzas,
with some corrupt renderings but clearly condensed from the longer ballad, was printed in
1890, by Horsfall Turner,6 from a copy which had once belonged to John Baker Holroyd,
Earl of Sheffield; it was reprinted by Ahier in 1944, 7 by which time the manuscript was in
the possession of a Mr. A. Exley of Gerrards Cross. The prose narrative, the ‘discourse’,
was first printed by Horsfall Turner,8 in 1890, from the same manuscript; this, too, was
reprinted by Ahier in 1944. 9 Another copy of the ‘discourse’, identical as to content with the
other but in an earlier hand, was printed in part, in 1911, by A. M. W. Stirling10 from a
manuscript then in the possession of Sir Walter Spencer-Stanhope of Cannon Hall. Other
copies, of both ballad and ‘discourse’, exist or have existed.11 Dodsworth found one of them,
for he noted down a summary of the main events in the ‘feud’ and referred to ‘evidence’ in
the keeping of John Armytage, of Kirklees.12 A search for this in the last century proved
fruitless.13

NT. D.] Whitaker, Loidis and Elmete (1816), p. 395.

2 [J] Watson, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Halifax, in Yorkshire (1775), pp. 170-6.

3 Whitaker, pp. 396-400. He inadvertently omitted stanza 116.

4 J. Crabtree, A concise history of the parish and vicarage of Halifax (1836), pp. 442-6.

6[J.] Horsfall Turner [(ed.) The Ell and Tragedies (Bingley, 1890)], pp. 59-83.

6 Ibid.

7 [Philip] Ahier [The Legends and Traditions of Huddersfield and its District Vol. II The Ell and Feud (Huddersfield,

I944-5)L PP- 45-50-

8 Horsfall Turner, pp. 52-8.

9 Ahier, pp. 5-9.

10 Annals of a Yorkshire House, i, pp. 11-18.

11 See Historical Manuscripts Commission, Third Report — Appendix (1872), p. 295; Ahier, p. 61.

12 [Bodleian Library, Oxford] MS. Dodsw. 145, fo. 107. Other references to the ‘feud’ are in MS. Dodsw. 58,
fo. 61 (not Dodsworth’s hand) and MS. Dodsw. 117, fo. 113V.

13 Horsfall Turner, p. 1.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Late in the seventeenth century Samuel Midgley, a Halifax physician, wrote a flamboyant
and grotesquely inflated version of the story, under the title ‘Revenge upon revenue - or an
historical narrative of the tragical practices of Sir John Eland, of Eland ;’ this, which was
published by William Bentley m 1712, 11 and reprinted in 1761, was derived, as to statements
of fact, entirely from the ballad and the ‘discourse’. A book entitled ‘Sir John Eland Knt • a
legend of the fourteenth century,’ published in 1882 by C. P. Hobkirk under the pseudonym
H. P. Carlton, is a work of pure fiction. As fir as literary evidence goes, the Tudor ballad
.s thus the earliest source of the feud , later by almost two centuries than the events it
purports to describe. It has been suggested15 that the ballad maker made use of an earlier
poem or narrative, now lost. This conjecture has not been verified but is in any case im-
material to the present purpose, which is to establish the truth of the Eland affair by con-
temporary evidence. 7

The story of the ‘feud’, as recounted in the ballad, falls into three parts.16 The first part
(stanzas 1-33) tells how Sir John Eland, when sheriff, collected a band of friends and tenants
and marched by night to Crosland Hall, the home of Sir Robert Beaumont, a ‘kind and
courteous knight’ who had offended Sir John. On the way they called at Quarmby Hall
where they killed the lord , Hugh of Quarmby, and at Lockwood, where they killed
Lockwood of Lockwood’. Having thus dispatched Beaumont’s allies they reached Crosland
Hall, but found it moated and the bridge drawn up. They remained in ambush until a
servant-girl let down the bridge, then rushed in and, after a fight, decapitated Beaumont.

hey then treated themselves to breakfast and ordered Beaumont’s two surviving sons to
eat with them. The younger boy did so but Adam, the elder, ‘sturdily would neither eat nor
rmk . The first part ends with bland noting the surly conduct of Adam Beaumont and
threatening to cut him off if he should later make trouble.

The second part (stanzas 34-66) begins with a recapitulation that, during the fi Hi ting
messengers had been sent to Lancashire, to summon ‘Mr. Townley and Brereton’ t o the
Beaumonts’ aid. These gentlemen ‘came with speed’, but, when they had reached Marsden,
heard that Beaumont had been killed and went home again, taking with them Lady
Beaumont, their kinswoman, and her children all’. Lockwood, son of the murdered
Lockwood of Lockwood’, Quarmby, son of Hugh of Quarmby, and one ‘Lacy’ went with
them, and these boys were brought up together at Brereton Green and Towneley Hall,
remaining there for fifteen years. During this time they practised the use of weapons and
waited for revenge. At the end of this period two men from Quarmby visited them, and
told them that they would stand a good chance of surprising Eland if they were to ambush
him as he came fiom keeping the tourn at Brighouse. Beaumont and the other three there-
fore went over to Brighouse and lay hidden in Cromwellbottom Woods. On the appointed
day, as Sir John came from the tourn, the conspirators attacked and killed him.

The third part of the narrative (stanzas 67-124) begins with the flight of the murderers to
Furness Fells, the then wild part of Lancashire lying between Windermere and Coniston
Water. Here they stayed for a long time, planning further mischief and receiving news from
spies in Elland. Sii John Eland had been succeeded by his son, John, who was married and
had an infant son. Finally, on the eve of Palm Sunday, Beaumont and the rest went again to
Elland and took possession of the mill-house which stood on the Calder bank, near Elland
Hall. Next morning, as the young knight and his household began to cross the river by
means of the mill-dam, Beaumont and his friends shot arrows at them, killing the ‘knight’
and mortally wounding his son. They then fled towards Ainley Woods, hotly pursued by
the men of Elland. In the course of a running fight Quarmby was wounded and, although

14 As an appendix to The history of the famous town of Halifax in Yorkshire, also attributed to Midgley: see W.
Boyne, The Yorkshire Library (1869), p. 92.

15 Ahier, pp. 51-2.

16 References to stanzas are to the longer version, as printed by Horsfall Turner, unless otherwise stated.

THE ELAND MURDERS, I35O-I : A STUDY OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND FEUD

Lockwood was able to carry him for a while, he had to be left behind. Beaumont and
Lockwood managed to escape to Huddersfield and Crosland Hall but the Elland men,
returning home, found Quarmby and killed him.

The ballad ends at this point, with some verses (stanzas 1 17-124) addressed to the Yorkshire
gentry, and in particular to ‘Savile’, bidding them to 'love one another . . . and dwell in
charity’. The author of the ‘discourse’, evidently thinking the ending rather abrupt, added a
fourth part dealing with the subsequent careers of the protagonists.17 Adam Beaumont fled
the country, took service with the knights of Rhodes, and died in Hungary fighting the
heathen. Lockwood remained in the nei ghbourhood, carrying on an affair with a woman who
lived at Cannon Hall; he was betrayed by the tenant of the hall to ‘Boswell’ the under-
sheriff, who surprised him and put him to death. The fate of ‘Lacy’ is not disclosed. Glosses
on this simple story have been many. The anonymous author of the ‘discourse’, finding no
adequate explanation in the ballad for Sir John Eland’s murderous attack, expanded the
suggestion that ‘Eland sheriff was by Beaumont disobey’d’ (stanza 14) into a quarrel over the
composition for a previous murder, that of a kinsman of Eland by one ‘Exley’, a protege of
Sir Robert Beaumont.

Dods worth, in 1629, asserted that the ‘feud’ had its origin in the quarrel between Thomas,
Earl of Lancaster and John, Earl of Warenne, which had led to fighting between the
adherents of the two magnates in 13 17. 18 Some writers have suggested that the affair had
something to do with the rebellion of Thomas of Lancaster, which led to the earl’s execution
and attainder. It will be shown that such conjectures, based on the supposition that the first
part of the ballad was founded on fact, are not acceptable. The ‘feud’ has not hitherto been
investigated fully; W. P. Baildon, in 1890,19 and Sir Charles Clay, in 1913, 20 published
material relating to those parts of the narrative which are based on fact, but otherwise the
story has attracted only discursive speculation.21

II THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE MURDERS OF THE TWO ELANDS

The events leading to Sir John Eland’s death began, on 24 March 1350, with the issue of
letters patent to William Basset, Eland himself, Nicholas Wortley and William Notton,
four of the West Riding keepers of the peace.22 They were to try two prisoners held in
York Castle, namely, William of Hornby, son of William of Quarmby, and William, son
of Thomas of Lockwood, who had been indicted of felonies and trespasses, committed in
the West Riding, before the named keepers and their colleagues. No indictments of the
two men have been found, but William of Lockwood had evidently been indicted before
Hilary Term 1349, for in that term he was put in exigent23 by the King’s Bench. The
exigent was repeated in the Michaelmas Term of the same year24 and again in Michaelmas
Term 1350. On the last occasion the sheriff returned that William of Lockwood, with many
others, had been exacted at five consecutive sessions of the county court, namely, on 11
January, 22 February, 5 April, 17 May and 28 June, and, having failed to appear, had been
outlawed.25 This return conflicts with the recital, in the letters patent, that William was in
gaol at York on 24 March. One possibility is that the ‘William, son of Thomas of Lock-

17 Horsfall Turner, pp. 56-8; A. M. W. Stirling, ubi cit.

18 MS. Dodsw. 145, fo. 107, pr. Yorkshire] Archaeological] J[oumal], ii (1873), p. 163.

19 ‘The Elland Feud’, Y.A.J., xi (1890), pp. 128-30.

20 [C.T.] Clay, [‘The family of Eland’, Y.A.J. , xxvii (1913)] pp. 23iff.

21 E.g. T. Dyson, The history of Huddersfield and its district (2nd ed., Huddersfield, 1951), pp. 124-48; T. W. Hanson,
The story of old Halifax (East Ardsley, 1968), pp. 38-42; Ahier, passim.

22 P[ublic] R[ecord] 0[ffice, London], C. 66/230, m. i6d. See Calendar] [0/] Pat[ent] Rolls, 1348-1350, p. 530;
Clay, p. 242.

23 PRO, K.B. 27/355, m. 85. Putting in exigent was a process whereby sheriffs were ordered to proclaim the
names of wanted persons at the county court ; after the fifth proclamation such persons would be outlawed if they
had failed to appear.

24 PRO, K.B. 27/357, mm. (Rex) 25d., 32d., showing that he was the subject of two indictments.

26 PRO, K.B.27/361, m. (Rex) i6d.

6 4

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

r°i°f the leferS Patent was not the same P^son as the ‘William of Lockwood’ of the
sheriff s return, but this is unlikely as the indictment of Eland’s murderers, to be mentioned

e ow, names a William of Lockwood’. It is easier to assume, either that William had not
been captured at -all,26 or that he managed to escape before he could be brought to trial.
The name of William of Hornby has not been found in the Yorkshire exigent lists; we may
assume that indictments had been made against him, but had not found their way into the

mg s Bench There is no evidence that the letters patent of 24 March were acted on, and
t e fact that the two men were at large, in the autumn of 1350, supports the inference that
they were not. They were, however, in some danger, and the steps they took to escape from
it appear from the terms of the indictment for the murder of Sir John Eland. This docu-
ment was made at Pontefract on 9 April 1351— the eve of Palm Sunday— before Sir
Brian Thornhill, William Notton, William Fynchenden and John Norland, justices of the

pejCwmireClteSrttiatiAdam Beaumont (de Beumond), William of Quarmby, of Hornby
and William of Lockwood feloniously killed Sir John Eland at Brighouse, on Friday 29

October 13 5o, because the said Adam, William and William were indicted before the said
John and his colleagues of various felonies and trespasses, and process by capias and exigent
was issuing against them, and for that reason they lay in wait for the said John for a long
time until they thus killed him, and they continuously lay in wait, with a great multitude of
evildoers, for William Mirfield, one of the said justices, in order to kill him’. The name
Adam de Beumond has not been found in Yorkshire exigent lists, but a man named
Adam Paumond was put in exigent by the King’s Bench in Easter Term 1344, 28 and again
m the following Hilary Term,29 for various trespasses. He was exacted at York on 5 July
1344, and the roll notes that he was subsequently outlawed.30 A John, son of Thomas of
Lockwood was put in exigent, and exacted, at the same time, and later surrendered himself
into custody.3* This John had been accused, in the King’s Bench at York in Michaelmas

erm 1340, of having been together with Johannes Beaumond miles — Sir John Beaumont of
Crosland, eldest son and heir of Sir Robert — a common malefactor, and ‘in the habit of
beating men of the country in fairs and markets, and taking goods and chattels from them
by threats and extortion;’ there was a specific charge of having beaten, at Ahnondbury in
I339, an Adam of Lepton, a Richard, son of Hugh, ‘and many other men of the country’.32
John of Lockwood appeared in the King’s Bench, in Michaelmas Term 1342, and was fined
half a mark for his various trespasses’.33 We shall return to the exploits of Sir John
Beaumont, which were not confined to this episode. For the moment, it is noteworthy that
John, son of Thomas of Lockwood was committing crimes in the company of one Beau-
mont in 1339-40, and was apparently committing further crimes, prior to 1344, with

another man whose name, if we can assume a slight error on the part of the enrolling clerk,
was also Beumond’ or Beaumont.

The indictment of Eland s murderers has survived in a copy sent to the king by William
Notton, who was ordered to send it on 5 July 1351. By that time the king, or his officers,
were aware of the second murder, that of Eland’s son, for on the following day an em-
phadcally-worded order34 was sent to William Plumpton, Brian Thornhill, William
Mirfield and the other West Riding justices. This recites that Adam Beaumont (Beaumund),

t TenV341 Sir J°,hn Eland’ then sheriff’ was fined half a mark because he had not produced

John Malle of Bretton whom, according to his return, he had taken into custody: PRO, K.B. 27/326 m (Rex
48d. and roll of fines. Other instances ibid. ' v

27 PRO, C.47/86, file 25, no. 650.

28 PRO, K.B.27/336, in. (Rex) 7.

29 PRO, K.B.27/339, m. (Rex) i9d.

30 PRO, Just. 2/212, m. 6.

31 Ibid.

PRO, K.B. 27/325, m. (Rex) 34 (recital, and continued process to Trinity Term 1341)
33 K.B.27/330, roll of fines.

C. 66/234, m- 2id; Cal. Pat. Rolls, I350~I354> P- 156; Clay, p. 242.

THE ELAND MURDERS, 1 350-1 : A STUDY OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND FEUD

William of Lockwood and ‘many other felons indicted for the murder of Sir John Eland’,
having gathered together many more felons and evildoers, had killed John, son of Sir
John Eland, ‘because he was prosecuting the said felons for his father’s death in our court
coram nobis’; they had also killed several persons of the family and friendship of Sir John,
and were still assembling together in confederacies. They had, it was alleged, attacked,
beaten and wounded others of the king’s justices of oyer and terminer, and had killed
certain of their servants, ‘because [the justices] were proceeding against them on the indict-
ments for the said felonies’. The order directed the justices to capture Adam, William and
the rest, and their inaintainers and receivers, and to imprison them at York. The court
coram nobis was the King’s Bench, but the rolls for the appropriate terms35 have no entries
connected with Sir John Eland’s murder. The court was sitting at Westminster in the
terms following Eland’s death, and possibly his son had tried, but failed, to get the matter
raised there. In the end, the indictment was made before the local justices, as noted above,
and it may be that the king was referring to the normal procedure whereby local indict-
ments were sent up to the King’s Bench for capias and exigent to issue.

The Yorkshire ministers and justices made some attempt to carry out the king’s instruc-
tions, but had little success. The principal murderers were not brought to trial, but a few
alleged harbourers and associates were rounded up and tried by gaol delivery justices.
W. P. Baildon, by publishing transcripts of some of these proceedings,36 became the first
person to show that the Eland legend contained an element of truth. The first cases came
before William Basset and his colleagues, at a York Castle gaol delivery, on 25 July 1353. 37
Robert del Both of Holmfirth, and four other men, were charged with having knowingly
received, at Holmfirth, Almondbury and Skelmanthorpe, ‘William of Lockwood and
Adam Beaumont who feloniously killed John Eland, knight’, knowing them to have been
outlawed. Edmund of Flockton was charged with having received Beaumont alone, at
Flockton. Thomas Molot, of Wakefield, was accused of having maintained Thomas, son of
Thomas Lascy ‘who had feloniously killed John Eland, knight’. All were acquitted. On
21 July 1355, before Thomas Seton and his colleagues, John of Shelley was tried for having
received, at Brighouse, William of Lockwood, Adam Beaumont ‘and others’, who had
killed Sir John Eland: he too was acquitted.38 These are all the cases printed by Baildon, but
two others need mention, the first from a delivery at York Castle made by Basset on
27 February 1353. William Godcman, indicted before Peter de Nuttle, sheriff of Yorkshire,
was charged with having received, at Wakefield and elsewhere, William of Lockwood, ‘a
thief outlawed for various felonies, knowing him to be a thief and outlaw’; he was
acquitted.39 At the delivery by Basset on 25 July 1353, already mentioned, Thomas, son of
Henry, son of Stephen of Ulskelf was charged with having been ‘in the company and aid’
of William of Lockwood and Thomas (sic) Beaumont, thieves, at Bramham and elsewhere
in the West Riding, knowing them to be outlaws. He was acquitted of this and another,
unrelated, charge.40

It was common at this period for murderers to be pardoned but the king took a stand,
for some years, against pardoning anyone who had been involved in the Eland affair. Many
pardons, otherwise for all felonies, except ‘the death of John Eland, late one of the justices
of the peace in the county of York’. This was merely a precaution, for there is nothing to
connect most of the persons, to whom such pardons were granted, with the Eland murder,

35 I.e., Hilary and Easter Terms, 1351.

36 Ubi cit.

37 PRO, Just. 3/79/1, m. i8d.

38 PRO, Just. 3/141A, m. I7d.

39 PRO, Just. 3/79/1, m. I4d.

40 Ibid., m. I7d.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

or even with Yorkshire.41 A possible exception is Thomas Lacy, pardoned in March 13 52, 42
who may have been T homas Lascy of Cromwellbottom, a rather bad character who, it has
been argued, may have been the father of one of Eland’s murderers. However, the crime
for which Thomas needed a pardon was the breaking of the park of Edmund, the king’s
son, at Sandal in 1348.43 O11 21 July 1357 one John del Hill was pardoned expressly for
complicity in both Eland murders. The charter,44 granted at the request of the Prince of
Wales for good service in Gascony, declares that the king had pardoned John his suit ‘for
the death of John, son of John de Eland . . . and also for abetting and receiving Adam
Bcaumond, William of Lockwood and William of Hornby, indicted for the death of John
Eland, knight . The identity of this John del Hill has not been established, for it was a
common name.45 There was a John del Hill of Hipperholmc who, with his wife Alice,
and two other persons, had been put in exigent in Trinity Term 1355, for a trespass com-
mitted against Alcock.46 As Hipperholmc is only two miles from Brighouse this John
del Hill may have been one of the Eland murderers though, as the case of William of
Hornby will show, they may not all have been local men.

It is apparent that the official records tell a credible and consistent story. Sir John Eland
met his death in the course of duty, trying to bring to justice some of the wandering felons
and outlaws who infested Yorkshire at this time. His son, John, was murdered because his
activities constituted a danger to his father s murderers. That the principals were never
brought to justice is not surprising for the machinery of justice, impressive on paper, was
difficult to put into effect, if the King’s Bench had been sitting at York, holding one of its
miniature criminal eyres, at the time the murders were committed, perhaps more would
have been done, but this great court was a bureaucratic, not an executive, body and many of

the people it put in exigent — sometimes over a hundred at once from Yorkshire alone47

weie never caught and tried. The sheriff of Yorkshire had, one supposes, enough men to
keep his castle and gaols, and to send out occasionally with precepts, but must have been too
hard-pressed to go continually round the county looking for malefactors. In any case, it
was easy to escape him by taking refuge in another county or in a liberty, such as Agbrigg,
m which the king’s writ did not run. The local justices, like Sir John Eland, were in a worse
case than the sheriff for they had no force at all to reckon on, apart from what their own
servants and households could provide. No doubt, as they were men of some substance,
they provided themselves with some guards, but they lacked the power to tackle gangs and
mobs of determined felons, and must all have run the risk of assassination: Eland was not
the first Yorkshire justice to meet a violent death.48 Conditions in Yorkshire were not
totally anarchic the justices managed to hang a few friendless criminals, and others,
especially thieves and robbers, were sometimes summarily decapitated by the populace or
hanged by franchise courts — but this was small thanks to the government, which expected
the local ministers to keep the counties in order without itself providing more than moral
support. The official record of the Eland murders is in important respects irreconcilable
with the ballad story, and the discrepancies must be examined in detail.

41 E.g. pardons to John Lercedekne, of Cornwall and John de Bokholt of Hailsham: Cal. Pat. Rolls nso-nsd

pp. 171, 269. ’

42 Ibid., p. 242.

43 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1348-1350, p. 161.

44 PRO, C.237/8, no. 133; see Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1354-1358, p. 592; Clay, p. 243.

T--®-27/334> m- (Rex) 35 (John, son ol Robert del Hill of Theakston) ; K.B. 27/337, m- (Rex) 23d., K.B. 27/346
Barnsley I2:^°hn’ S°n of Michael del Hil1 of Fla with; Just. 1/1141, m. 7: Henry, son ofjohn del Hill, probably of

46 PRO, K.B. 27/380, m. 57.

47 E.g. PRO, K.B. 27/3 5 5, m. 85 (Hilary Term 1349, King’s Bench at York), 135 names in the exigent list. Not
all were criminals.

48 Godfrey Stainton was murdered at Ackworth, on 20 March 1330, only a year after being placed on the com
mission: see Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1327-1330 , p. 571- An inquisition held by Sir John Eland and Thomas Deyvill, at Leeds,

°n 10 , Ptem°er *33° produced the names of eight alleged murderers but all were subsequently acquitted- PRO*
K.B. 27/286, in. (Rex) 8. 1

THE ELAND MURDERS, 1 350-1 : A STUDY OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND FEUD

III THE BALLAD VERSION OF THE MURDERS OF THE TWO ELANDS
The second part of the ballad begins with material (stanzas 35-42) which belongs chrono-
logically to the first part, and which will be left aside for the time being. The second part
properly begins with the arrival of ‘Dawson and Haigh’ from Quarmby. If we omit, as
padding, speeches of the protagonists, descriptions of the fighting and moral reflections,
there are three facts, apart from the actual murder, on which the credibility of the ballad
story depends: the assertion that Beaumont and the rest came over specially to murder
Eland, having been out of Y orkshire for fifteen years ; the statement that Eland was murdered
as he came from keeping the Brighouse tourn; the siting of the ambush and murder at
Brookfoot. The first of these ‘facts’ is quite inconsistent with the official record, which
shows that at least three of the assailants stood indicted, at the time of the murder, for
crimes committed in Yorkshire. Two of them, Lockwood and Hornby or Quarmby, may
have been in gaol at York. Moreover, the crimes for which Lockwood, at least, had been
indicted and outlawed were thefts: the ‘young gentleman’ of the ballad, to whom were
allotted four stanzas (43-46) for expounding high sentiments of vengeance, was in fact a
latro utlagatus .49 Again, the Eland indictment reveals that the gang had been waylaying Sir
John for a ‘long time’ before they managed to kill him: a statement deriving additional
support from the fact that he had made his will on 8 September 13 50: 50 probably he knew,
by then, that his life was in danger.

As to the portentous message from Quarmby (stanza 49) to the effect that . . . Eland kept
alway the Turn at Brighouse certainly, and you shall know the day’, one must describe it
as highly misleading. The tourns at Brighouse were not sheriff ’s tourns for the wapentake
but were held, twice a year, by the lord of the honour of Wakefield, and presided over by
his seneschal or, more likely, some minor official acting as locum tenons. In 1350 the second
tourn of the year was held on 26 October,51 not on the day of Eland’s death, which was the
29th. The seneschal of the dowager Countess of Warenne, Joan de Bar, was, and had been
for the whole year, Richard Fitz John, whose name is on the roll recording the tourns in
question.52 Only routine business was transacted, the roll does not record Sir John Eland’s
presence, and there is no reason at all to suppose he might have been there. Eland had been
seneschal of Wakefield himself, many years before,53 but he was too important a man,
especially in the later part of his career, to have acted as locum tenens in the humdrum
matter of holding tourns. He owed suit, at Wakefield, for the lands which he held of the
honour in Stainland, Norland, Barkisland and Rishworth,54 but invariably paid a small fine
in lieu of personal attendance.55 All the chief tenants of the honour did the same, personal
suit being made normally only on the occasion when a man first did fealty,56 and again
when the nature of his suit was determined. Eland owed no suit to the tourns, whose suitors
were small freeholders and bond-tenants with sometimes a stiffening of petty manorial
officials. The ballad maker, perhaps knowing that Sir John had once been Warenne’s
seneschal, evidently made a guess as to the reason for his presence in Brighouse, but the true
reason needs no elaborate explanation. This place, then an insignificant hamlet, lay on what
was, before modern turnpike and trunk roads were built, the main highway from Elland to
York, a road which Sir John would have taken frequently. The road, which still exists,
leaves Elland by the Lower Edge Road and so enters Rastrick, descending thence to cross
the Calder by Rastrick (later Brighouse) Bridge: this bridge was in existence by the late-

49 See above.

50 Clay, p. 239. The will was proved by Alina, Eland’s widow, on 24 November.

61 Yorkshire] Archaeological] S[ociety], W[akefield] C[ourt] R[olls], M D 225, roll 3, m. id.

62 He had held the previous Brighouse tourn on 7 January 1350: Ibid., roll 2, m. 6.

63 1.e. in 1339: YAS, MS. 759, part 8, p. 58.

64 MS. Dodsw. 1 17, fo. 145.

56 He did this for the last time on 20 October 1349: YAS, WCR M D 225, roll 1, m. 1.

56 Eland did fealty at Wakefield on 22 July 1309: C[ourt] R[olIs] of [the Manor of] Wakefield (various editors, YAS
1901-1945), ii, p. 221.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

thirteenth century.57 An additional reason for choosing Brighouse for the ambush may have

riV*’ an<^ ^astr^c^’ laY within the liberty of Agbrigg whose lord — the lord of
Wakefield— exercised the franchise of return of writs.58 The sheriff could not enter the
liberty with his writs of exigent, but had to hand them over to the bailiff of the liberty to

serve and execute. The Agbrigg bailiff is known to have been slow, on occasion, to execute
the king s commands.59

The ballad maker, by placing the site of the ambush at Brookfoot, is again in conflict with
t e indictment, which states that Eland was murdered apud Brygghous. Today Brighouse
may perhaps include Brookfoot, but this was not the case in the fourteenth century.
Brookfoot is half a mile from Rastrick Bridge, on the north bank of the Calder, where the
modern road from Elland to Brighouse rounds a bend in the river. If Sir John had been at
Brookfoot, he would have been well off the highway, for the modern road, the Elland -
Obelisk turnpike, was not constructed until 1815. 60 As late as 1720 Warburton’s map of the
county shows no road at all along the north bank of the Calder. The ballad writer, who
assumed Eland to have been totally unprepared for the ambush, saw no difficulty in assuming
that he would have made his way home by a circuitous route passing through dense
woodlands,61 but that was precisely the kind of route a man situated as Eland was, in the
autumn of 1350, would have taken pains to avoid.

One final point: the legend makes no provision for the fact, disclosed by the indictment,
that the gang which murdered Eland had also tried to ambush and kill William Mirfield!
Mirfield was not connected with the local families from which, according to the ballad,
the murderers came, and his only connection with Eland was an official one : both men were
on the commission of the peace. The official record gives ample reason for the outlaws’
animosity towards him; the ballad, however interpreted, gives none.

The third part of the ballad is inordinately long but again the essential ‘facts’, in addition
to the murder, are few: the absence of the murderers, this time in Furness Fells, during the
whole time which had elapsed since the first murder; the death of ‘Quarmby’ at the hands
of the Elland men; the assertion that the John Eland killed in the second attack had been his
father s heir. On all three points the narrative is unsound. The alleged absence of the
murderers from Yorkshire is rebutted by the recitals in the commission issued to Plumpton
in July 1351? from which it appears that Beaumont and his associates — evidently a much
larger body, incidentally, than is indicated in the ballad — had been carrying on a most
violent campaign, not only against Eland s son, but against the king’s ministers and justices
generally. Further homicides and woundings were committed by them in this period. They
could hardly have kept the country in the state described from a refuge in Furness Fells.

It has been argued62 that the omission of Quarmby s name from the commission to
Plumpton affords some confirmation of the ballad story that he had been killed by the
Elland men, but the point is inconclusive; the commission recites that ‘many other felons’,
in addition to Lockwood and Beaumont, indicted for the death of Sir John Eland, had
killed his son, and Quarmby may well have been one of these. It was not necessary that the
names of all the gang should be mentioned in the commission. We know that John del Hill,
pardoned in 1357, had ‘abetted and received’ William of Hornby, as well as Beaumont and
Lockwood, indicted for the death of Sir John. The indictment against these men was not

57 W. B. Crump, ‘Elland and its highways’, P[apers, Reports etc. read before the } Halifax A[ntiquarian ] Society]
^926) P- 70; w. B. Crump, Huddersfield highways down the ages (Huddersfield, 1949), esp. pp. 15-20 21 44.
Rotuli Hundredorum (Record Commissioners, 1812-18), i, p. 132.

69 Sir John Eland, when sheriff, said on one occasion that he had ordered Robert of Bradley, bailiff of Agbrigg
to carry out a king’s [Bench] precept, but he had done nothing: PRO, K.B. 27/330, m. (Rex) 3od. In March 1331
this Robert of Bradley had been amerced 1 mark pro contemptu, probably because of similar inactivity : Just. 1/1126,

60 R. Mitchell, Brighouse; portrait of a town (Brighouse, 1953), p. 43.

J See W. B. Crump, Ancient highways of the parish of Halifax’, P Halifax AS (1925), pp. 225-6
b“ Ahier, p. 67.

THE ELAND MURDERS, I35O-I: A STUDY OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND FEUD

made until 9 April 1351, so the receiving must have taken place after that date. But if the
death of the younger Eland took place on Palm Sunday, 10 April, John del Hill would not
have been able to receive Quarmby or Hornby if the latter had been killed in the attack.
The official documents do not mention the time or place of John Eland’s death, so two
possibilities exist: either that the killing took place on Palm Sunday, but that Hornby
escaped and survived long enough to be received by Hill, or that the death of Eland took
place on a date long enough after Palm Sunday for Hornby to have been received by Hill
before his own death, which did indeed take place immediately after Eland’s murder. The
ballad must be wrong on one point if the other is correct. The suggested date of Palm
Sunday, for Eland’s death, is a likely one. For one thing, it is the only exact point of time
found anywhere in the ballad and may therefore represent one of the few facts to have been
carried down by tradition. We know, also, that the murderers of Eland suffered a serious
setback on 9 April for, despite their violent campaign, they were indicted at Pontefract.
This might well have caused them to turn on John Eland, whom they would have regarded
as the procurer of the indictment. It is not impossible that the second murder took place at
Elland, though poetic licence is more than usually strong in this part of the ballad: the
account of the crossing of the Calder by means of a dam, for instance, is suspect, since Sir
John Eland is known to have kept a boat for crossing the river.63

There remains the question of the succession, after Sir John Eland’s death, to his principal
estate, the manor of Elland and Owram. Sir Charles Clay pointed out64 a minor error
(stanzas 94, 95) in the ballad, namely, that the Eland heiress, later married to Sir John
Savile, was the daughter of a deceased son of Sir John, Thomas Eland, and was therefore
niece, not Tull sister’ of John Eland the younger. Elland and Owram were among the
estates which had been settled on Sir John, by his father Sir Hugh Eland, pursuant to
marriage covenants made between the latter and Sir Robert Lathom in 1308 -9. 65 Although
no fine was levied, and no charters of feoffment have survived, Sir John can be taken to
have been seized of these estates, in special tail, from at least 1309, the year of his father’s
death.66 Sir John, who provided for the issue of his second marriage out of other lands,
made no attempt to resettle or break the entail on Elland and Owram, which were held
from Pontefract Castle by military tenure.67

According to the ballad, John, the ‘young knight’, succeeded to these lands and held them
up to the time of his own death. But an entry in the accounts of the feodary of Pontefract,
for the regnal year 25 Edward III (25 January 1351-24 January 1352) shows that this was not
the case. The entry, translated, runs: ‘Elande: from the lands and tenements in Elande, in
the lord’s hand because of the minority of the son (filii) and heir of Thomas de Elande, for
the Pentecost Term, J^6. 85. 2d.’.68 The word Jilii must be a transcriber’s error for filie for
there is no doubt that the heir in question was Isabel Eland : the same transcript contains, a
little further on, a second entry for the same year: ‘Wardship and marriage: from the
wardship and marriage of the heir of Thomas de Elande, sold to John Savile, -£200.’ The
reference to Pentecost Term shows that the Elland lands were among those which accounted
to Pontefract at two terms of the year, Pentecost and the feast of St. Martin in hyertie (n
November);69 so, for a half-year’s issues to have been due at Pentecost (5 June) 1351, the
lands must have been taken into the lord’s hand on or about the preceding 11 November.
As Sir John Eland had died on 29 October, it is clear that the estate was taken into the lord’s

63 PRO, Just. 2/21 1, m. 6d.

64 Clay, p. 245.

65 Yorkshire] D[eeds ] [(various editors, YAS, 1909-1924)], ii, p. 65.

66 C. R. of Wakefield, ii, p. 204.

67 MS. Dodsw. 34, fo. 57d. ; G. D. Lumb (ed.), ‘A fifteenth-century rental of Pontefract’, Thoresby Society,
Miscellanea VIII (1924), p. 256.

68 MS. Dodsw. 39, fo. 59; see Watson, p. 69.

69 See P. A. Lyons (ed.), ‘Compoti of the Yorkshire estates of Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln', Y.A.J., viii (1884),
PP- 351-8.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

hand as soon as the officials of the honour heard of his death: consequently his grand-
daughter Isabel, was his heir, and her father, Thomas, must have been the elder son. Sir
John had had a son, Hugh, living in 1332, who may have been the eldest son of the first
marriage 70 but he must be taken to have predeceased his father, leaving no issue. A Thomas
son of John de Eland, who had lived at Tankersley, was murdered there on 4 January 1344!
One William, son of Hugh of Tankersley was indicted for this crime and subsequently put
m exigent. 71 It seems probable that this Thomas had, in fact, been the son of Sir John Eland
and father of Isabel, for it would have been normal for Sir John to have established his heir
apparent at Tankersley, his second most important estate.72

Isabel, who would have been not less than six years old when her grandfather died, was
married to John Savile between 1351 and 1354. 73 As her grandfather’s heir general she
conveyed to the Saviles, independently of the entailed estate, the fee simple reversion on the
lands in the honour of Wakefield which had been settled in tail on the issue of Sir John’s
second marriage. A fuither pointer to the fact that John Eland was a younger son is the fact
that 111 1345 his father made some provision for him out of lands which he had recently
purchased the manors of Brighouse and Carlinghow74 — the inference being that he was
unlikely to succeed to the entailed estate. From charters of feoffment transcribed bv Dods-
worth75 it appears that Brighouse and Carlinghow were settled on John Eland the younger
and Alice his wife in tail, but that shortly afterwards this settlement was broken and the
same lands resettled by John the younger on his father, the latter’s second wife ‘Helen’ (Alina)
and their issue: as no fines were levied, it would appear that John’s wife ‘Alice’ had died
without issue, and that John had been induced to surrender what had shrunk to be a life
estate. Probably Sir John proposed to make alternative provision for his son, and he may
indeed have been the John Eland the younger who was presented by Sir John to the rectory
of Tankersley on 10 November 1348.76 There is no evidence that John was ever a knight.

To summarise, the second and third parts of the ballad, though based on the undoubted
murders of the two Elands, contain little else which is authentic. The ballad maker knew the
names of four of the murderers, and probably the exact day of the year on which the
younger Eland died, but the rest of his information is false. Either he did not know what had
happened, and simply constructed a suitable framework of fiction to round off his story of
Eland s own murderous activities, or else he deliberately chose to conceal the truth. Further

discussion of this problem will be postponed until the first part of the ballad has been
considered.

IV THE ALLEGED MURDERS OF BEAUMONT, QUARMBY AND

LOCKWOOD

A11 examination of the criminal records of the relevant period has revealed no evidence of
any murders, or other crimes, alleged to have been committed by Sir John Eland, and no
evidence that Sir Robert Beaumont, or men named Quarmby and Lockwood, were
murdered. Although it is not proposed to rely on an argument a silentio, the early-fourteenth
century is a well-documented period and it would have been unusual for a crime of the
magnitude of that attributed to Sir John Eland to have left no written traces. No doubt, as
Watson remarked,77 Eland would probably have been able to obtain a pardon for the

77 Watson, p. 176.

70 PRO, C.P. 40/292, in. 482, C.P. 40/293, m. 339.

71 PRO, Jiist. 2/209, m. 8d.; K.B. 27/336, m. (Rex) 7; K.B.27/340, m. (Rex) 15.

Pheie was a house theie for the accommodation ot the lord of the manor: it was burgled in 134s ■ PRO Tust
3/78, m. i6d. ‘ ’ J ■

73 Yorkshire Fines, 1347-1377, p. 43.

74 See Yorkshire] S[tar ] Chamber] Proceedings] [(various editors, YAS, 1909-1924), ii pp <9-61

75 MS. Dodsw. 117, fos. I2iv., 146.

76 Fasti Parochiales, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson and C. T. Clay (YAS, 1943), ii, 76ff.

THE ELAND MURDERS, I35O-I: A STUDY OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND FEUD

murder of Beaumont but pardons were not granted orally. It is proposed to examine those
facts on which the credibility of the ballad story depends.

A. Sir Robert Beaumont and his family

Since Sir John Eland was sheriff of Yorkshire for one year only, from October 1340 to November 1341, 78 it has
been claimed that the events narrated in the first part of the ballad took place in that year. However, Sir Robert
Beaumont of Crosland had died at least ten years before Eland’s year of office. The last deed he is known to have
made or witnessed was made on 29 December 1329. 79 In the following Michaelmas Term (October 1330) his
widow, Agnes, appointed John Woderove her attorney in two actions in the Common Bench, one against Richard
Byrun, the other against Agnes, daughter of John Beaumont.80 Next year, Agnes was conducting actions for debt,
in the Wakefield manorial court, against Alice, widow of John Heaton and against Richard Gates of Dewsbury.81
So Sir Robert Beaumont must have died in the first ten months of 1330, and it is likely that his widow was his
executrix. Clearly ‘Eland sheriff’ could not have been ‘by Beaumont disobey’d’, and the period supposed to have
elapsed between the death of Beaumont and that of Eland must be extended from the fifteen years of the ballad
(stanza 42) to twenty years. Although there is little evidence for it, Agnes Beaumont was supposed to have been a
member of the Quarmby family, who were ‘lords’ of Quarmby from at least the late-thirteenth century until 1384
when William Quarmby, the last of the male line, devised his estates to Sir Brian Stapleton.82 This was certainly
the family tradition: in the sixteenth century Richard Beaumont, who died in 1540, went so far as to trace a claim
to the manor of Quarmby through the marriage of his ancestor, Sir Robert, with Agnes Quarmby.83 His claim
was undoubtedly spurious, but he compelled the Stapletons of the day to go to arbitration.85 It would seem that
the ballad maker either did not know of, or wished to conceal, this real or putative relationship between the two
families: his case for the ‘feud’ would have been fortified by pointing out that Sir Robert Beaumont and ‘Hugh’
of Quarmby had been kinsmen by marriage.

Sir Robert Beaumont had at least six sons, John, Thomas, William, Adam, Henry and Nicholas. The first five
were named, in that order, in a fine levied of the manor of Crosland in 1 322. 8:> John, Thomas, Adam and Nicholas
are known to have survived their father. Agnes was the mother of John86 and consequently, as she survived her
husband, of all the legitimate issue. In 1330 John, vouched to warranty by his brother, Thomas, in an action against
the latter by John, son of Thomas of Shepley, was found unable to warrant because he was still under age.87 The
action was resumed in Michaelmas Term 1336, and John warranted his brother in Hilary Term 1337;88 he must by
this time have come of age, and so would have been about 15 years old when his father died. His legitimate brothers
(there is a doubt about Nicholas) could not, at that time, have been older than: Thomas, 14, William, 13, Adam, 12,
Henry, n. So Adam, who must have been at least one year old in 1322 — as he had a younger brother, Henry, then
living — would have been aged between 29 and 32 at the time of Eland’s murdeF — a somewhat mature ‘young
gentleman’ by fourteenth-century standards. The ballad maker does not make it clear why the carrying on of the
‘feud’ was left to Adam, the fourth son, alone: the most obvious inference is that he did not know of the existence
of the elder brothers, though it is possible that what he knew of John and Thomas he chose to conceal.

B. The ‘Townleys and Breretons’

The most curious episode in the ballad legend is that which describes how help was summoned from ‘Mr. Townley
and Brereton’, who arrived too late to be of assistance but, as they were (stanza 39) ‘friends to [Lady Beaumont]
and of her blood,’ made amends by taking her and her children home to ‘Townley Hall and Brereton Green’. Even
pritna facie the story bristles with improbabilities. No messenger could have got out of Crosland Hall during the
night, because the Beaumonts did not at that time know they were in danger. In the morning, when Eland got in,
Beaumont’s death followed quickly so the point of sending for help to one man who lived over 20 miles away, and
another nearly 50, is not apparent. Brereton Green and Towneley lie in different directions from Crosland and the
journey to and from each required a difficult Pennine crossing. The ballad maker, who supposed Brereton to have
been in Lancashire, caused ‘Mr. Townley and Brereton’ to travel by the same route, arriving eventually at the
‘mount beneath Marsden’, but Marsden would not have been on ‘Mr. Townley’s’ route at all: he would have
crossed the Pennines at Blackstone Edge, going thence through Sowerby89 and Elland or possibly cutting through
Stainland and Golcar. And who, in any case, was ‘Mr. Townley’? Evidently the head of the family of Towneley,
of Towneley Hall, is meant, but in 1330 the estates formerly held by the last male of the Towneley family, Nicholas,
were in the hands of his sisters as coheirs. One of these was married to John de Legh whose son, Gilbert, later suc-

78 PRO, Lists and Indexes IX (1898), p. 161.

79 H[uddersfield] C[entral] Lfibrary], W B D/IV/24 (MS. Dodsw. 155, fo. 154); as to this having been his last
deed, see R. H. Beaumont’s notes, HCL, W B G/40, p. 3.

80 PRO, C. P.40/283, rolls of attorneys, m. 13.

81 C.R. of Wakefield, v, pp. 188, 195, 196.

82 MS. Dodsw. 58, fo. 43V. (grant to feoffees), fo. 56 (quitclaim); MS. Dodsw. 99, fo. 11 (will).

83 MS. Dodsw. 1 17, fo. 86v.

84 HCL, W B D/VII/I, 68-74; W B L/32, 1-3.

85 HCL, W B D/I/3.

86 HCL, W B D/VIII/8.

87 PRO, C. P.40/283, m. 229d. Action by entry sur disseisin in respect of the ‘manor’ of Breretwisel which Sir
Robert had settled on Thomas: see PRO, Lists and Indewes XXXII (index of placita de banco, 1327-8), Easter Term,
1328, m. 124; MS. Dodsw. 133, fo. io6v.

88 PRO, C.P. 40/308, m. 65d., C.P. 40/309, m. 132. See also YD, iv, p. i66n. Thomas Beaumont was himself
suing Sir John Flemyng and others in debt: PRO, C.P. 40/284, m. 193d., C.P. 40/287, m. 388d., C.P. 40/291, in. 183.

89 See W.B. Crump, ‘The York and Chester highway through Sowerby’, P Halifax A S (1927), pp. 1 ff.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

ceeded in reuniting the manor and who took the surname Towneley. This did not take place until many vcars after
Sir Robert Beaumont s death.90 Special pleading has sought to identify ‘Mr. Townley’ with John de Lecff 91 but
it seems more likely that the ballad writer guessed that, because the Towneleys were an ancient family, there must
have been one living at Towneley Hall at the time of the murder.

The kinship which the ballad maker invented for Lady Beaumont appears to have been purely fanciful No point
ot contact is known to have existed between the Beaumonts of Crosland and the Breretons of Brereton, whose head
m 1330, was Sir William Brereton, married to a daughter of Ralph Vernon of Shipbrook,92 or between the
Beaumonts and the de Leghs or Towneleys. Although precise evidence of Agnes Beaumont’s connection with the
Quarmby family is wanting, the Quarmbys belonged to the class of minor West Riding gentry93 into which the
Beaumonts, whose aspirations in the fourteenth century did not extend beyond the situation of local squires
invariably married. Until the sixteenth century no Beaumont, male or female, is recorded as having married into a
family of superior rank to their own, or out of the county. As, in addition, no matrimonial or other ties appear to
have existed between the Breretons and the de Leghs or Towneleys, the ballad maker would seem to have picked
on these families almost at random to link with the Beaumonts. It is strange that he should have done this
particularly as, in his own time Richard Beaumont was making great play with the Beaumont-Quarmby connec-
tion. if ballads had had any probative value one might almost suspect that the Stapletons had paid the ballad maker
to provide Agnes Beaumont with a false pedigree. It may be, as Ahier thought,94 that he knew of a marriage quite
recent at the time when he was writing, by which the Beaumonts did become connected indirectly with the
Towneleys. In 1 528 Richard son and heir apparent of his father, Roger Beaumont, and who eventually succeeded
his grandfather Richard as head ot the family in 1540, married Catherine, daughter of Sir Robert Nevile of
Liversedge. Catherine s mother had been a daughter of Sir John Towneley of Towneley Hall.95 The ballad maker
picking up the gossip of the country, may have formed the idea that the Beaumonts were ‘kin’ to the Towneleys’
not troubling himself with further research. The supposed relationship with the Breretons, however, cannot have
had its origin in any such gossip for no family connection at all can be traced. Oddly enough the arms which the
reretons bore in the sixteenth century— argent, two bars sable — were identical with the coat which had been
borne, in the fourteenth, by the Yorkshire Heatons,9’ a family claimed (on dubious grounds) to have been the
ancestors of the Quarmbys. The Quarmbys had probably never been an armigerous family but, in the sixteenth
century, the Beaumonts granted’ them posthumously the arms of Heaton, differenced by a martlet, and added this
coat to their quarterings They also put up the ‘arms of Quarmby’, impaled by their own, in certain stained glass
windows: one such, in Huddersfield Parish Church, was seen by Robert Glover in 1585. 98 It seems not impossible
that persons, seeing such impalements, might have come to the mistaken belief that the Beaumonts were allied bv
marriage to the well-known Cheshire family. ;

C. The identities of ‘Beaumont’, ‘Quarmby’, ‘Lockwood’ and ‘Lacy’

We have seen that Sir Robert Beaumont had a son, Adam, born between about 1318 and 1321. Little is known of
him except that he was living in 1350, the year of Sir John Eland’s death: on 2 April Adam Beaumont quit-
clanned Ins interest in certain land at Lepton, which his elder brother, Thomas, had granted to Adam Hopton of
Mirfield, to the said Hopton.99 This is the only deed of Adam’s to have survived. It is not certain that this Adam
Beaumont was the only man, living in 1350, to bear that name: other Beaumonts are encountered in Yorkshire100
and in 1323 a deed relating to land at Thong, near Holmfirth, was witnessed by an ‘Adam del Beaumand’ who
could not have been Adam, son of Sir Robert, as the latter would have been an infant then.101 The identification
01 Q.dam’ son 01 Sir Robert, with the Adam Beaumont who murdered Eland cannot be positively established but
the following points make it at least a possibility: (a) in 1339-40 Sir John Beaumont, of Crosland, was engaged in
criminal enterprises with John, son of Thomas of Lockwood, (b) an ‘Adam Paumund’ was put in exigent It the
same time as John, son of Thomas of Lockwood, (c) an Adam Beaumont took part in the murder of Eland in
association with William, son of Thomas of Lockwood, (d) William, son of Thomas of Lockwood was associated
with a Thomas Beaumont in the commission of thefts, (e) Sir John Beaumont had brothers named Thomas and
A -i-* 11 j ^ as.sume tdat J°hn and William of Lockwood were brothers — a point however which cannot be

verified— the evidence suggests that a family of Beaumonts were associated, for criminal purposes, with a family of

Lockwoods and, since the identity of one Beaumont, Sir John, is clear, that Thomas and Adam were his younger
brothers. 7 &

90 V[ictoria\ C[ounty ] H[istory], Lancashire, vi, pp. 457-8.

91 Ahier, p. 125.

92 G. Ormerod, History of Cheshire (2nd ed. by T. Helsby, 1882), hi, pp. 87-8; Visitations of Cheshire (Harleian

Society, xvin, 1882), pp. 41-2. '

93 E.g the Hoptons, of Mirfield, the Neviles, of Liversedge, the Soothills of Soothill, the Mirfields, the Wodes

of Longley and the Woderoves ot Woolley: seej. Foster, The pedigrees of the county families of Yorkshire (1874) i
Beaumont of Whitley Beaumont, Crosland, the Oaks, etc.’ '

94 Ahier, p. 131.

95 Marriage covenants dated 26 February 1528: HCL, W B S/22.

II ubi cit-; Queen’s College, Oxford, MS. 158, p. 503 (Calverley’s Cheshire roll of arms, r.1450).

F. S. Col man, A history of the parish oj Barwick in Elmet (Thoresby Society, xvii, 1908), pp. 46-8; Whitaker,

p. 302; J. Foster (ed.), The Visitation of Yorkshire made in the years I584I5 by Robert Glover, Somerset Herald [etc 1 ’
(1875), p. 468.

98 J. Foster (ed.), op. cit., p. 476.

99 HCL, W B D/IV/34; Y.A.J., vii (1882), p. 41 1.

100 E.g a Beatrice Bealmond, of Snaith, put in exigent in 1344: K.B.27/335, m. (Rex) 10, and a William Beumond,
tried at York for theft in 1360: Just. 3/81/5, m. id.

101 Y.A.J., xiii (1895), p. 196.

THE ELAND MURDERS, I35O-I : A STUDY OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND FEUD

Turning to ‘Quarmby’ we find three assertions in the ballad; first, that the lord of Quarmby was murdered by
Eland, secondly, that this man’s name was Hugh of Quarmby, thirdly, that Hugh’s son was one of Eland’s
murderers. All these assertions are false. The name of Eland’s murderer is given officially as ‘William of Horneby,
son of William of Querneby’, ‘William of Querneby’, ‘William of Horneby’ and ‘William of Quernby, of
Horneby.’ So his father’s name was William, not Hugh. Local historians seem to have taken ‘Horneby’ to have
been a variant form of ‘Querneby’ but this cannot be so. Place-names beginning with ‘Q’ had alternative forms
beginning with ‘W’, which in most cases have prevailed, for instance, Wheldale, Wheldrake and Whixley were
once spelled Queldale, Queldryk and Quyxley. The alternative form of Querneby or Quarmby was Wherneby or
Wharnby, never Horneby which can only have denoted the modern Hornby.102 There were two Hornbys in the
North Riding and Hornby in Lancashire, also spelled Horneby, was in fact nearer to the places with which the
ballad is concerned than the North Riding villages. Eland’s murderer was either a William of Quarmby, from
Hornby, or a William of Hornby, from Quarmby, the former being the more likely. But whether William and his
father lived in Quarmby or not is immaterial, for the father could not have been lord of Quarmby. In the year of
Sir Robert Beaumont’s death the lord of Quarmby was neither a William nor a Hugh, but John, and he did not
die in that year. The estates of the Quarmbys were held in part directly from Wakefield, and in part from the
Heatons as mesne lords.103 The first lord of Quarmby in the fourteenth century, John I,104 was succeeded prior to
1304 by his son, John II, who died shortly before 18 January 1326, the date of the writ summoning his inquisition
post mortem.105 His heir was his son, John III, then aged 40 years ‘and upwards’, who evidently died in 1336: his
widow, Margery, is named in a fine levied in that year,106 and his son and heir, John IV, did fealty at Wakefield
on 24 October 1337, the mesne lord’s rights being in the hands of the lord of Wakefield because of the minority of
the heir of John Heaton.107 So John III was lord of Quarmby at the time of Beaumont’s death but he survived the
latter by six years. There is no record of any member of the family called Hugh.

The ballad writer did not commit himself (stanza 17) to naming the father of ‘Lockwood’ but local historians
have not hesitated to assume that ‘Lockwood of Lockwood’ had been the head of a local family of some importance,
living at ‘Lockwood Hall’.108 There is no evidence of the existence of any such family, nor of any such hall. The
lords of Lockwood, which was neither township nor manor, were the Byruns and Beaumonts who held moieties
of the manor of Huddersfield. There was a substantial family named Lockwood living in Wakefield and holding
lands there and in adjacent places;109 its heads, a series of Williams, were manorial officials; they appear to have had
no connection with the numerous Lockwoods living in the Huddersfield district. These last were below the rank of
gentry and can be taken to have held small parcels of land throughout the district from the Beaumonts, Quarmbys,
Byruns and other lords of manors. One such grant, by one of the Beaumonts to an Adam, son of Walter of Lock-
wood in c.1300 has survived,110 and this Adam, and other Lockwoods, often witnessed Beaumont deeds. It is
impossible to construct a pedigree for the Lockwoods* * 111 and Thomas, the father of the William who murdered
Eland, has not been identified. A man of this name was said, in 1317, to have formerly held an assart in Crosland
from Wakefield,112 but whether he was the same person, or of the same family, as the other Thomas of Lockwoods
whose names are found in the Wakefield rolls113 from 1307 until the 1350s is not clear. It is not at all unlikely that
Sir Robert Beaumont had a tenant or servant of this name, whose sons were friends and associates of his own sons.

The fourth member of the quartet, Thomas, son of Thomas Lascy, is likewise unidentifiable. The ballad maker
introduces him casually (stanza 41) at the time when the future murderers went to Brereton Green, suggesting that
he was ‘kin’ to Lockwood and Quarmby. Local tradition114 has sought to identify him with the family of Lacy or
Lascy of Cromwellbottom, on no better grounds than the proximity of that family’s home to the woods where the
murderers lay in ambush. The head of the Cromwellbottom family in 1330 was Henry, who survived until at least
1 3 56. 115 He had a brother, Thomas, who had various brushes with the law, not amounting to the commission of
felonies, and who lived until at least 1353. 116 This Thomas had a son named John, but is not known to have had a
son named Thomas. No ties of kinship have been traced between the Beaumonts or Quarmbys and the Lascys of
Cromwellbottom but the Lascys were related to Sir John Eland: John de Lascy IV, who died in 1310-11, had
married a sister of Sir John.117 It would therefore seem that if the Thomas, son of Thomas Lascy who murdered

102 A. H. Smith, The place-names of the West Riding of Yorkshire (English Place-Names Society, xxxi, 1961), p. 301 ;
A. H. Smith, The place-names of the North Riding of Yorkshire (E. P-N.S., v, 1928), pp. 240, 280.

103 See C. T. Clay (ed.), Early Yorkshire Charters, viii (1949), p. 181.

104 W. Brown (ed.), Yorkshire lay subsidy, being a ninth collected in 25 Edward I, 1297 (YAS, 1894), p. 95.

105 Cal. Inq. post mortem, vi, no. 663.

106 Yorkshire Fines, 1327-1347 (ed. W. P. Baildon, YAS, 1910), p. 109.

107 MS. Dodsw. 58, fo. 3; see YD, i, pp. 140-1.

108 Y.A.f., vii (1882), p. 416; T. Dyson, op. cit., p. 129.

109 C.R. of Wakefield, i, p. 253; v, pp. 6, 21.

110 MS. Dodsw. 155, fo. 150V.

111 The pedigree compiled by G. W. Tomlinson and printed by Ahier, pp. 81-2, is a conflation.

112 C.R. of Wakefield, iv, p. 183.

113 Ibid., ii, p. 64; iii, p. 112; v, pp. 129, 168; YAS, MS. 759, part 1, pp. 1, 102, 106; part 2, pp. 26, 29; WCR
M D 225, roll 5, m. 14; roll 2, m. 6.

114 Ahier, pp. 87-9.

115 C. T. Clay, ‘The family of Lacy of Cromwellbottom and Leventhorpe’, Thoresby Society, xxviii (1923-7)
pp. 475-6.

116 Ibid., pp. 476-7. This Thomas was probably the man who, with Iris son John, broke the park at Sandal in,
1348: Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1348-1330, p. 161; he was accused of a disseisin at Hipperholme in 1340: PRO, K.B. 27/322,
m.(Rex) i2d., and, as Clay noted (op. cit., p. 477) got into trouble with the king over the wardship of Thomas le
Vavasour: K.B. 27/342, m. (Rex) 31.

171 Clay, p. 474.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Eland had indeed been the son of Thomas de Lascy of Cromwellbottom., he could have had neither the excuse that
he was seeking to avenge the death of his father, nor that he was participating in order to oblige his relations

To summarise: it is apparent that the first part of the ballad is, as R. H. Beaumont thought,
a piece of fiction. Either the ballad maker was an ignorant man, doing his best with the
scraps of information at his disposal, or else he chose to conceal what he knew of the Eland
affair. It remains to consider those facts he may have suppressed, if he knew of them, or, if
he did not know of them, the sources on which he may have drawn when concocting his
fable.

V THE SOURCES OF THE ELAND LEGEND
A. The criminal activities of Sir John Beaumont, of Crosland
Sir Robert Beaumont is not known to have been in any serious trouble with the law,
though he probably was the Robert de Beaumond accused, in April 1323, of having
assaulted Robert Tyays at Kirkburton Church,118 and he may have been the Robert de
Bellomonte who, it was alleged in 1327, had been associated with the prior and canons of
Nostell in committing trespasses on the king’s property in York.119 In both cases there were
counter-charges. His son and heir, Sir John, was engaged in more disreputable activities. In
November or December 1341 a man named Robert del Wode, of Longley, was murdered
at Almondbury. At a York gaol delivery, in Michaelmas Term 1343, Adam del Castel
senior, Adam del Castel junior, of Almondbury, and William Godman, of Honley, were
tried for this crime and acquitted.120 Another man, John of Hatheresclif (possibly Hather-
shelf) was indicted but not brought to trial.121 Sir John Beaumont was involved in this affair,
possibly as an accessory, for on 3 June 1342 Marjory, the widow of Robert del Wode, gave
him a general release of all actions arising by virtue of any appeal for her husband’s death.122
Something has already been said of the beatings and extortions which Sir John committed,
in the company of John of Lockwood, in 1339-40; like his companion, Sir John got off
lightly with a fine of half a mark.123 More dangerous to him was a charge presented before
the King’s Bench at York in Michaelmas Term 1340. The jurors of ‘various wapentakes’
presented that Sir John Beaumont, with others, had by night burgled the house of William
of Stainland, at Quarmby, and had feloniously stolen therefrom twenty shillings in silver.124
This was potentially a hanging matter whereas murder, when prosecuted by appeal, could
be compounded for as it evidently had been in the case of Robert del Wode. Sir John was
clearly guilty for, having been bailed to await his trial,125 he procured a pardon, attested by
Edward, Duke of Cornwall, on 24 October 1342. By the terms of the pardon126 he was to go
to Berwick on Tweed and serve in the garrison there, for a year, at his own expense. When
Sir John turned up with his pardon and an accompanying writ to the justices in the King’s
Bench the same term, they refused to allow it because the condition had not yet been
fulfilled. Process was continued against him127 until the Easter Term of 1347 when he was
given a day, the octave of Michaelmas, to appear;128 presumably he appeared and had his
charter allowed, for no further entries occur.

118 C.jR. of Wakefield, v, p. 11.

119 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1324-1327, p. 353-

120 PRO, K.B. 27/334, m. 3od. Godman was probably the same man as the William Godeman who was tried in
1353 for receiving William of Lockwood: ante.

121 PRO, K.B. 29/9, m. 58T

122 HCL, W B L/i ; MS. Dodsw. 133, fo. 116.

123 PRO, K.B. 27/330, roll of fines.

124 PRO, K.B. 27/325, m. (Rex) 34: recital and process to date.

125 Sir John’s mainpernors included a Thomas de Lascy, probably of Cromwellbottom; one of Lockwood’s was
Thomas Beaumond, probably Sir John’s brother.

126 pro, K.B. 27/330, m. (Rex) 42d.

127 pro, K.B. 27/332, m. (Rex) 24d., 27/342, m. (Rex) 47; 27/346, m. (Rex) 40.

128 PRO, K.B. 27/348, m. (Rex) 35.

THE ELAND MURDERS, I35O-I: A STUDY OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND FEUD

Sir John Eland was sheriff of Yorkshire in the very term in which the presentments had
been made, against Beaumont and Lockwood for the trespasses and against Beaumont alone
for the felony, at York. It was he who had captured them on process by capias and exigent,
and who had produced them in the King’s Bench, at Westminster, in Trinity Term 1341. 129
We do not know how Eland executed his precepts but it is quite likely that some scuffle
would have taken place, and we may take it that the sheriff’s activities, however mild-
mannered, would not have earned him the esteem of the Beaumonts and their allies. The
Beaumonts may have resented, too, and tended to blame on Eland, the decline in their
family fortunes which took place in the middle decades of the century and which must have
been brought about, in part, by the expenses incurred as a result of these criminal ventures.

As early as 1337 Sir John Beaumont had granted away, in fee, land in South Kirkby
which had formed part of his patrimony and which happened not to be entailed.130 In
February 1348 he was in debt to Adam Hopton, the father of his eldest son’s wife, to the
tune of ^100 with jC 20 expenses: probably he had borrowed from Hopton the money to
pay his passage through the Chancery and King’s Bench, or the cost of his expedition to
Berwick on Tweed. Hopton subsequently took possession of his principal estate, the manor
of Crosland, by proceedings in statute merchant,131 and later granted his statutory term to
Sir Brian Stapleton.132 The latter was still holding the manor when Sir John died.133 In 1354
Sir John even sold, to William Mirfield and his sister Agnes, the reversion on the lands which
his mother, Agnes, was holding as her dower, reserving an annuity of jCio for his own life
and the like sum thereafter to his heirs.134 It may be that there was an element, in this
transaction, of compensation to Mirfield who, it will be remembered, had been a target for
Adam Beaumont and his band of evildoers in 1350-51, for otherwise unrecorded crimes.
Sir John’s younger brother, Thomas, likewise parted with most of the property which his
father had settled on him. He lost his ‘manor’ of Breretwisel, through no fault of his own,
to John of Shepley in the litigation previously mentioned, but was unable to get anything in
substitution from his brother, despite the latter’s having warranted him. In 1346 he granted
his Lepton lands to Adam Hopton.135 He appears to have had nothing left except some land,
of unknown but probably small value, in Meltham, out of which he granted, in 1347, an
annuity of 12s. 4d. to Alice, wife of Thomas Bosevile of Cawthorne, a man of dubious
reputation.136 x"

It seems likely that the Beaumonts’ attempt to set themselves up as ‘criminal knights’, on
the pattern of William Bosevile of Micklefield and Sir Hugh Eland of Doncaster — of whom
more anon — gave an impetus to the general factors bearing heavily on landowners at this
time, and helped to put the family fortunes into a depressed state from which they did not
fully recover until the sixteenth century. Under Sir Robert Beaumont, who had increased
his patrimony by purchases, and who had served as coroner and knight of the shire, the
family had seemed set to enter the middle rank of county families whose heads were usually
knighted and given judicial and administrative offices. After Sir John, no head of the family
was knighted until James I’s reign: his own heir, his second son, Henry, a man himself
involved in murder and robbery, was entered in the 1379 poll tax return as a mar chant de
hestes.137

129 .. . ad quetn diem venerunt predicti Johannes Beaumond et Johannes filius Thome de Locivod . . . per vicecomitem Ebor’
ducti per breve domini regis de exigendis etc. . . . K.B. 27/325, m. (Rex) 34.

130 MS. Dodsw. 133, fo. iiov.

131 HCL, W B D/II/6.

132 MS. Dodsw. 133, fo. hi.

133 HCL, W B L/2; MS. Dodsw. 133, fo. hi.

134 HCL, W B D/VIII/8 (covenant); Yorkshire Fines, 1347-1377 (ed. W.P. Baildon, YAS, 1915), p. 48.

135 HCL, W B D/IV/279.

138 HCL, WBE/i.

137 Y.A.J., vi (1881), p. 167, where his name is printed Henricus Bennetnan. See B. H. Putnam (ed.), Proceedings
before the justices of the peace in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Ames Foundation, 1938), pp. 443, 459; L. Tolson,
History of . . . Kirkheaton (Kendal, 1929), p. 117.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

There is no evidence that Sir John Beaumont, or his brother Thomas, were involved in
Eland s murder and Adam s complicity was based, as we have seen, on his own activities.
But it does not seem too much to claim that the affair of 1339-40 may have left behind it
either a precise tradition, which the ballad maker deliberately cloaked with fiction, or at
least a vague understanding that there had been trouble between the Beaumonts and the
sheriff In the fictitious account (stanza 16) of Eland’s attack on Quarmby Hall there is an
echo of the real crime perpetiated at Quarmby by Sir John Beaumont, and the latter’s arrest
by Eland, which may well have taken place at Crosland Hall, may have helped to produce
the story of Eland’s ‘siege’.

B. Indirect sources

If the ballad maker, knowing the true nature of the relations between Sir John Eland and
the Beaumonts, chose deliberately to conceal them, his motive can only have been to
‘whitewash’ a family which, in his day, had become respectable and influential in the
county. But we cannot assume that he knew of the 1339-40 affair and must therefore con-
sider how he came to compose his story on the basis of a knowledge of the Eland murders
alone. Did he make it all up, or draw on legends and traditions unconnected with Eland
and the Beaumonts? There are indications that he was influenced by the outlaw-ballads,
especially the ‘Gest of Robyn Hode’ which had been printed shortly before the Eland ballad
was composed. From this source he may have drawn the idea that the forces of law and
order, in the Middle Ages, were invariably oppressive and treacherous, and that those who
opposed them always had moral right on their side. All the actions and attributes of Sir
John Eland, in the ballad, are of the kind which a man who had read the ‘Gest’ would have
thought suitable for sheriffs. One episode in the ballad, the narrative of the murderers’
flight from Elland after the murder of the younger Eland (stanzas 106-113) bears some re-
semblance to a similar story in the ‘Gest’, that of the outlaws’ flight from Nottingham after
the sheriff had tried to trap them in the town.138 The ballad- writer may have had access to
other ballads, now lost: the episode of the miller and his wife (stanzas 78-81), for instance,
has been claimed to spring from popular literature. Eland’s siege of, and entry into, Crosland
Hall (stanzas 19-21) may owe something to the late-fifteenth-century ballad about the
murder of Sir John Butler, of Bewsey, although the method of crossing the moat was
different.139

Whether the Eland ballad incorporates any local traditions of violent happenings in the
fourteenth century, is highly speculative, but it seems just possible that the characterisation
of Sir John Eland may have been influenced by some lingering remembrance of the exploits
of Sir Hugh Eland of Doncaster, a person who has been thought (on inadequate evidence)
to have been a kinsman of the Elands of Elland. Sir Hugh had a long career of law-breaking,
between c.1315 and 1339, which deserves fuller examination than is possible here. Omitting
his earlier offences, he was associated in the 1330s with one William del Mire, a notorious
thief, in whose company he broke the house of Henry of Clitheroe, at Auckley, in 1335,
and carried off goods worth 40s.140 Clitheroe had a warrant from the sheriff to arrest del
Mire, and the latter was killed while resisting arrest. Sir Hugh Eland, and one Robert
Clayton of Doncaster, a man himself indicted for harbouring murderers, thereupon assisted
del Mire’s widow to appeal Henry of Clitheroe for the death of her husband.141 In July 1336
Sir Hugh was imprisoned at Tickhill, and a special commission of oyer and terminer was
issued to John Stonor and others to try him.142 He was charged with four crimes committed

138 F. J. Child (ed.), The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1889, repr. New York, 1965), iii, pp. 56IT.

139 Ibid., iii, p. 327.

14° pro, K.B. 27/300, m. 97.

141 PRO, K.B. 27/306, m. (Rex) 41; 27/307, m. (Rex) 15.

142 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1334-1338, p. 294.

THE ELAND MURDERS, I35O-I *. A STUDY OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND FEUD

in Yorkshire and one in Nottinghamshire:143 receiving and sheltering murderers, partici-
pating in the proceeds of thefts, capturing and imprisoning certain men until they bought
their release by payments of money, robbery, and abetting del Mire’s widow in the bringing
of the above-mentioned vexatious appeal. Sir Hugh had defences to some of the charges but,
to avoid being brought to book for the others, he took himself off to Scotland, probably in
the king’s service, where he died before Michaelmas Term 13 39. 144 Sir Hugh was not as
black a character as Eustace Folville, the leader of the Leicestershire gang whose doings have
been investigated by Professor Stones,145 or as some of the Boseviles — he seems never to
have been charged with murder — but there seems little doubt that he was a semi-profes-
sional brigand and cattle-lifter, ranging over the north midlands and the southern part of
Yorkshire. Although it was only a coincidence that one of the leading criminals in the
county, in Sir John Eland’s time, bore the name of that knight, the ballad maker, if he had
come across any tradition relating to the ‘Eland gang’, might well have foisted the attributes
of Sir Hugh on to Sir John: genealogy was not his strong point and the fact that Sir John
had served as sheriff would, in his view, lead to a supposition that they had been one and
the same man.

C. The ‘feud’ between Sir Henry Savile and Sir Richard Tempest

Whitaker assumed the Eland ballad to have been written at the end of Henry VIII’s
reign, basing his judgment partly on the style of versification and partly on the inference
that the exhortation to ‘Savile’ (stanza 117) to be ‘not proud, but mild and meek, and dwell
in charity’ might well have suited Sir Henry Savile, who died in 1555, but would have been
‘impertinent if addressed to Edward Savile, his long lived son, an ideot’.146 In another place
the ballad maker went out of his way to disassociate the John Savile of Eland’s time from
complicity in the murders : he ‘kept himself from such debate’ and spent his time peacefully
at Golcar and Rishworth (stanzas 73,4). There is reason for thinking that these Savile
allusions are connected and that a contrast was intended to be drawn between the law-
abiding conduct of Sir Henry Savile’s ancestor and his own more dubious activities ; more
generally, that the ballad was meant to serve as a moral lesson to Savile and some of his
contemporaries. It appears certain that the ballad writer knew of the enmity between Savile
and Sir Richard Tempest, of Bowling, which produced some remarkable cross-petitions
in the Star Chamber.147 Here was a feud on the doorstep, so to speak, and some of its
elements, which would have been the subject of widespread debate at the time, found their
way into the ballad. The quarrel between the two men arose out of a conflict of interests
in the lands in Stainland, Barkisland, Rishworth and other places within the honour of
Wakefield which had once belonged to Sir John Eland and which, by the sixteenth century,
were in the hands of the Saviles, the entailed interest of the issue of Sir John’s second
marriage having expired. Savile claimed a mesne lordship in these lands and hence the right
to compel the tenants to make suit at his courts, and to pay heriots, wards, reliefs and other
dues, in addition to whatever dues and services they rendered to the honour courts.148
Tempest, who was seneschal of Wakefield under the king, resisted these claims.

Much of the substance of the cross-petitions is taken up with allegations of extortion,
harassment of tenants and vexatious conduct against Tempest, in his capacity of seneschal,

143 PRO, K.B. 27/307, m. (Rex) 23d.

144 PRO, K.B. 27/318, mm. I49d., (Rex), 13d.

145 E. L. G. Stones, ‘The Folvilles of Ashby-Folville, in Leicestershire, and their associates in crime,’ Transactions
of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, vii (1957), PP- luff. For the activities of another gang see J. G. Bellamy,
The Coterel gang: an anatomy of a band of fourteenth-century criminals,’ English Historical Review, lxxix (1964),
pp. 698ff.

146 Whitaker, p. 395.

147 See J. Lister, ‘Some local Star Chamber cases,’ P Halifax TS (1927), pp. 1 8 5 flf. ; R. B. Smith, Land and politics
in the England of Henry VIII (Oxford, 1970), pp. 147-50.

148 YSCP, iii, pp. 10, 104-5; i, pp. 189-90.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

and Savile in his assumed capacity of mesne lord. But, in addition, each man sought to
involve the other in liability for serious crimes, and, although liability was denied and there
was doubtless much exaggeration, there were plenty of witnesses prepared to back both
petitioners. Some of these crimes will have a familiar ring to anyone who has read the Eland
ballad. A striking example is the murder of Thomas Longley by Roger Tempest, a servant
and probably a kinsman of Sir Richard, which took place at Brighouse on 21 April 1518. 149
Sir Richard was actually keeping the tourn there at the time and, though it was hoped to
have involved him, no witness went so far as to accuse him outright. A second murder,
alleged to have been committed by Sir Thomas Tempest, son and heir apparent of Sir
Richard, was that of John Warde: according to witnesses an armed band went to his house
at night lured him out by a stratagem, and killed him.150 Savile alleged that Tempest
exercised a general power of life and death in the honour of Wakefield, causing to be
murdered such of its inhabitants as he happened to be displeased with: charges seconded by
an Isabel Jepson, who alleged that her husband had been murdered, at Wakefield in 1536,
by an assassin hired by the Tempests.151

Tempest, in the eyes of the Savile faction, was a man rather like Sir John Eland in the
ballad portrayal: a local magnate able, by virtue of his official position, to terrorise a whole
district the same district in each case — and to commit murders with impunity. Savile, in
his turn, was accused of harbouring and assisting notorious criminals. According to one
charge Nicholas Elyston, a man indicted of murder, fled to Elland and, when Tempest sent
an officer to arrest him, John Savile, the Saviles bailiff in Elland, summoned the towns-
people by ringing the bells backwards and drove the officer away, putting him in fear of his
life. Elyston later escaped to Darton where, it was alleged, Sir Henry maintained him under
the protection of his servant, Thomas Beaumont.152 Sir Henry was also alleged to have
stirred himself to protect some of his servants and kinsfolk, including a Hugh and a Thomas
Savile, who had murdered Gilbert Hanson, bailiff of Halifax, in that town.153 The charges
against Savile seem even less convincing than those against Tempest, but no doubt many
were prepared to swear to them, and it is clear at least that he kept a most unruly and
dangerous set of servants and followers for whose misdeeds he ran — in the reign of Henry
VIII some risk of suffering. The ballad maker’s hint to Savile to be ‘mild and meek’ can be
interpieted as a strong hint to Sir Henry to mend his ways: otherwise he might, like
Beaumont and the rest ... be undone utterly (stanza 98). The hint was all the stronger
because of the fact that the lands which Savile would lose, if he were to be ‘undone’, were
the very ones which the Saviles had originally acquired through the death of Sir John
Eland, who had disobeyed the injunction to ‘dwell in charity’.

VI SOME CONCLUSIONS

The Eland ballad was composed not solely for the entertainment of the Yorkshire gentry,
as has usually been supposed, but as a warning to them, and in particular to Sir Henry
Savile, that persistence in criminal courses was likely to lead to death and disinheritance. The
ballad was probably written in the 1530s, before the feud between Savile and Sir Richard
Tempest was brought to an end by the latter s death, and while the outrages perpetrated
by or attributed to the two men and their adherents were fresh in mind. The fate of Sir
John Eland was exhibited as an example to prove the point. The narrative is almost entirely
fictitious, for Sir John, a blameless, hard-working and highly respected minister, ironically
lost his life in striving to combat the very kinds of lawless conduct which the ballad maker
found objectionable in his own times. If the ‘poet’ knew anything of the criminal career of

149 Ibid., ii, p. 65: iii, pp. 64-5.

150 Ibid., ii, pp. 64-5; iii, pp. 63-4.

151 Ibid., iii, pp. 53-6; ii, pp. 47-8.

152 Ibid., iii, pp. 34-5, 105-6.

153 Ibid., iii, pp. 36-7, 106.

THE ELAND MURDERS, 1 3 50-1 : A STUDY OF THE LEGEND OF THE ELAND FEUD

Sir John Beaumont he took care to suppress it; he may have thought it indelicate, or even
dangerous, to bring skeletons out of the cupboard of a family which was flourishing in his
own time, whereas no harm could come of denigrating Eland: his family was extinct, and
all men would join in reviling a sheriff. It is safer to assume that he knew no historical facts
beyond what appear in the ballad, the rest of the narrative being drawn largely from his own
imagination, supplemented by gleanings from the ‘Gest’, other legends and traditions, and
an extensive knowledge of local topography. Of the continuation of the ballad narrative
in the ‘discourse’ it is unnecessary to say much, so obviously is this a gloss. The account of
Adam Beaumont’s service with the knights of Rhodes is a touch of improbable romantic-
ism, whereas the death of Lockwood at the hands of ‘Boswell’, the under-sheriff, has at
least the merit of plausibility: it may have been inspired by some vague tradition of the
numerous crimes committed by various members of the Bosevile family, of Micklefield,
Barnsley, Skelmanthorpe and Cawthorne,154 It is not at all unlikely that Lockwood met his
death in some obscure scuffle, and that a Bosevile was involved in it.

154 The worst Boseviles were James and Arthur, who murdered John Byngham in Aberford Church in 1346:
PRO, K.B. 27/347, m. (Rex) 3 : and William Bosevile of Micklefield who was convicted, in 1346, of having ridden
armed in Aberford, terrorising the inhabitants; levied blackmail; violently interrupted a sheriff’s tourn with an
armed gang; levied unlawful distresses, and committed other ‘enormous trespasses’: K.B. 27/354, m. io8d., 27/357,
roll of fines.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE, NORTH

YORKSHIRE

By Peter F. Ryder

Summary A brief review of the history ot Ravensworth Castle and of the deterioration of its remains since the
abandonment of the site is followed by a description of the earthworks and extant structures.

The ruins of Ravensworth Castle, the medieval seat of the Fitzhugh family, stand at the
south end of the village of Ravensworth, 5 miles north-north- west of Richmond. The site
is somewhat unusual, being a valley floor platfoim surrounded by an extensive marsh
(Fig. 1). The remains consist of a fourteenth-century gateway and adjacent tower, and
several other fragments of buildings of coeval or later medieval dates, some now in a
precarious condition. Documentary and other evidence suggests that the castle was in
existence at least two centuries prior to the date of the erection of the surviving structures.
The majority of the buildings appear to have been demolished in the sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries, little more than the remaining fragments being visible in the late
eighteenth-century. The site has received little attention in recent literature.

HISTORICAL NOTES

There is no record of the original foundation of the castle. The Fitzhugh family, its
owners until the sixteenth century, are recorded by Camden as being descended from ‘those
Saxons who were lords of the place before the Conquest’.1 The Domesday Survey records
the manor of Ravensworth as having been held prior to the Conquest by one Torfm, who
held land in 26 places.2 3 In 24 of his manors he had been succeeded at the time of the survey
by Bodin, whose chief manors were at Ravensworth, Melsonby, Scorton and Patrick
Brompton. In his old age Bodin became a monk at St. Mary’s Abbey, York, and is said to
have instigated his brother Bardulf to give to that monastery the churches of Ravensworth
and Patrick Brompton.

The castle continued in the same family throughout the medieval period. Whilst the
family were of considerable importance (Akar, d. 1161, being the founder of Jervaulx
Abbey, in which many of the Fitzhughs were buried), the castle itself figures in few records,
although a visit by King John in 1201 is noted. Henry, son of Hugh, in the reign of Edward
III, was the first of the family to assume the name Fitzhugh. His son Henry, Lord Fitzhugh,
travelled widely, attending Henry V in his wars in France, and visiting Jerusalem and Cairo.
In 1391 he received licence to enclose 200 acres of land around the castle as a park, or as an
extension to an existing park. The architecture of the surviving buildings suggests that his
activities at this time may have included a rebuilding of the castle itself. He died at Ravens-
worth on 11 January 1424 and was interred at Jervaulx.

A chantry within the castle chapel (itself dedicated to St. John the Apostle) was founded
in 1467 by the sixth baron Fitzhugh (another Henry), whose travels again included a pil-
grimage to the Holy Land. The chantry was dedicated to St. Giles and two priests were
engaged to sing daily for the welfare of the founder and Alesia his wife during their life
for that of their souls afterwards, and also for the souls of the founders and benefactors of the
Hospital of St. Giles near Brompton on Swale.4

1 Camden, W., Britannia (with Gough’s additions, 1806), III, p. 24.

2 Page, W. (Ed.), Victoria County History of the County of York, II (1912), p. 234.

3 Page, W. (Ed.), Victoria County History of the North Riding of Yorkshire, I (1914), pp. 88-9.

4 Speight, H., Romantic Richmondshire (1897), pp. 190-1.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

wmm

mm I

Fig. i. Ravensworth Castle, aerial view from the west.
( Photograph Cambridge University Collection )

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE

The long line of Fitzhughs finally came to an end in 1512 with the death without issue of
George, the eighth baron. The estate was divided between his aunt Alicia, wife of Sir John
Fiennes, and his cousin Thomas Parr, lord of Kendal, who took Ravensworth in part share
of his inheritance. His son William, later Lord Parr and Earl of Essex, died without issue in
1571 and his estates passed to the Crown.

In the mid-sixteenth century, during the ownership of Lord Parr, the antiquary Leland
visited Ravensworth and noted ‘the castle, excepting two or three towers, and a faire stable,
with a conduct coming to the hall side, had no thing memorable’.5 From this comment
Whitaker conjectures that the buildings were already in a state of decay and that only two
or three towers of an original eight remained standing.6

Half a century later, when the site was held by the Crown, the castle was certainly in a
state of advanced decay. Camden comments ‘Ravensworth Castle rears its head with a
large extent of ruined walls’. Plantagenet Harrison reprints a document of 1608 relevant to
this period in the decay of the castle: ‘Special Commission, 5 Jas. 1., touching the Manor and
Castle of Ravensworth. On the 14th April, 5 Jas. 1., James Foster of Ravensworth, aged
sixty years, was examined, and deposed that within these last six years there were ten wayne
loade of stone carried from the castle of Ravensworth, some of them piked fiorth of the
walles of the said castle, and some of them pulled furth of the gate-howse tower, which
stones were carried away by Sir Francis Boynton’s men, James Ponsonby being the bailiff
of the manor; and he saith that there hath been divers stones cast down from the gate-howse
tower by said Ponsonby’s brother and by him the said Ponsonby, and converted to his own
use; and he further saith that divers persons at divers and sundry times have taken and
carried away stones from the said castle without leave or asking, but what will repair the
damages made in the said castle by the said Ponsonby he cannot depose; he also stated that
many trees had been cut down and taken away, etc. Several other witnesses deposed to the
same effect as the above.’7

In 1629 the castle was granted to Edward Dichfield and other trustees. The ruins evidently
continued to be used as a convenient stone quarry over the next two centuries. Grose gives a
print (Fig. 4) of what is evidently the castle chapel, noting that most of the structure had been
pulled down prior to the date of his other illustration of the ruins (1784). 8 This destruction
had been occasioned by the local incumbent requiring materials to repair a tithe barn. The
later print published by Grose shows the ruins in a state not far removed from their present
condition (Fig. 3). The several scattered upstanding fragments of buildings which he shows
all remain today, at least in part. The upper part of the Belfry Tower and portions of the
south-west and south-east towers all seem to have fallen in the early years of the present
century.

Descriptions of the castle remains in nineteenth and twentieth-century literature are
generally brief, and on the whole the site has received little notice. Illingworth allows
Ravensworth the briefest of paragraphs, classing it as an ‘obscure castle’, which is hardly the
case. 9 Grange and the Victoria County History both give slightly more extended descrip-
tions of the ruins,10 but both these accounts are sadly confused in parts. Grange describes the
structure referred to in this paper as the south-east tower (in fact near the southernmost
point on the castle platform) as being at the north-east corner. The Victoria County History
refers to the same building as being ‘near the SW angle of the court’. The more recent note
on the site by Pevsner misquotes Grange as stating that the inscription round the Belfry
Tower ran ‘round the outside wall of the castle’.* 11

5 Leland, J., Itinerary (Toulmin Smith Ed.), I, p. 78-9.

6 Whitaker, T. D., History of Richmondshire (1823), pp. 123-4.

7 Plantagenet-Harrison, G. H., History of Yorkshire. Wapentake of Gilling ILkst (1885), pp. 127ft'.

8 Grose, F., Antiquities of England and Wales (1783-97), VIII, pp. 155-6.

9 Illingworth, J. L., Yorkshire's Ruined Castles (1938), p. 130.

10 Grange, W., The Castles and Abbeys of Yorkshire (1855), pp. 366-70; Page, W., op. cit. in n. 3.

11 Pevsner, N., The North Riding of Yorkshire (19 66), p. 288.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Fl(Y 2- Ravensworth Castle, general view Fig. 3. Ravensworth Castle from the north-west c 1780
trom the east. ( Photograph P. F. Ryder )

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE

THE SITUATION OF THE CASTLE

The village of Ravensworth, surrounding a large green with the base of a medieval cross
in its centre, stands on a low hill of glacial drift which rises 6-7-5 m above the marshy floor
of the Holme Beck valley. Between the village and the foot of the valley side to the south
is a further low-lying marshy flat, separated from the main valley floor by two necks of
slightly higher land connecting the valley side and the hill on which the village stands. The
marshy flat between them occupies an enclosed depression (well shown by the 400 ft.
contour on the Ordnance Survey 6 in. to 1 mile map), and the two necks both carry roads
and also the remains of the Park Wall, the boundary of Henry Fitzhugh’s hunting park.
The broader eastern ridge is a natural feature, but the slight mound to the west of the
marshy flat appears to be at least partly artificial (see ‘Outlying Earthworks’).

The castle itself stands on a well-defined raised platform near the north side of this en-
closed shallow basin, which despite modern attempts at drainage is swampy and in winter
holds considerable areas of standing water. The castle platform, which appears to be at least
partly artificial, is in plan roughly rectangular, its longer axis north-east to south-west, the
greatest length being r.137 m. and the width up to 67 m. The south-west end of the platform
is curved, or roughly apsidal. The majority of the area is elevated 3 m. — 4 m. above the
surrounding marsh.

The castle has been approached from the north, where the higher ground on which the
village stands approaches the site. The slightly raised line of the approach road from the
corner of the village green to the castle gateway is still quite well defined.

The Castle Site

Earthworks of the Castle Platjorm (Fig. 5)

The platform on which the ruins stand is steeply scarped on all sides, dropping to the flat
marshland which surrounds the site. Only around the north angle of the platform has
adjacent higher ground necessitated the cutting of a ditch, 20 m. wide and flat floored.
South-east of the angle this widens rapidly into another expanse of marsh bounded to the
north by a scarp which appears to be an artificial steepening of a natural slope, south-west
of the angle the ditch has evidently been spanned by a bridge taking the approach road to
the castle gateway — a stony mound, evidently formerly revetted in masonry, represents its
outer abutment. Beyond this, with the natural southward fall of the ground, the ditch rapidly
dies away.

There are remains of a slight counterscarp bank roughly paralleling much of the
perimeter of the platform. This bank now stands little more than 0-3 m. above the surround-
ing marsh, but is conspicuous due to the contrast between its turf and the adjacent reeds and
marshland grasses. The position of this bank varies between 6 m. and 12 m. from the foot of
the platform, and three stretches of it remain, around the east corner, along the southern
half of the south-east front, and along the western half of the north-west front.

Within the area of the platform the ground is broken by a variety of small hummocks,
ridges and depressions, marking the buried foundations of buildings and the lines of robber
trenches. The only evidence for earthworks on a larger scale in this area is seen in two large
hollows which may have formed parts of a ditch (later partly filled in) running north-west
to south-east and separating the north-eastern third of the platform from the remainder.

The highest point on the site — 4*9 m. above the marsh, and c. 2 m. above the majority of
the platform — is a mound situated on the north-west side of the area just west of the north-
west end of the internal ditch.

STRUCTURAL REMAINS

The fourteenth-century castle appears to have consisted of a curtain wall surrounding the
platform, linking a series of towers. Whitaker asserts that there were originally eight

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

' • ■ V

immmiiMM

•• . sS

mmmim

mMmmm

Fig. 4. Ravensworth Castle: the chapel, 1787.

MirMyfc?r Kiri^vMar^up¥&rtfi

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE

Fig. 5. Ravensworth Castle, ground plan

Surveyed 27/28 9 76
PP Ryder, 6. E. Ryder, C.Longthorne.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

principal towers, all square, but provides no evidence for this statement.12 Remains of three
rectangular towers still stand at the north corner (the Gateway Tower), towards the west
end of the north-west front (the South-West Tower) and towards the south end of the
south-east front (the South-East Tower). A squarish platform a few metres south-west of
the east corner suggests the position of a fourth tower.

u ^taker also states tkat castle consisted of three parallelograms surrounded by
ui dings. The foundation mounds and fragmentary remains of structures still extant within
the area do appear to back this up, and such an arrangement is indicated on the 1857 O.S.
6 in. map. The north-east third of the platform seems to have been divided into two by a
north-east to south-west range, and the larger south-western section of the site appears to
have had a larger courtyard’ area, with ranges to the north-east, south-east and south-west,
the latter running between the South-West Tower and the South-East Tower. South-west
of this range was another ‘open’ area (i.e. one that today shows little evidence of either
foundations or robber trenches), in the apsidal end of the platform.

In the following description the curtain wall and towers are dealt with first, and then the
various internal buildings.

The Curtain Wall

There are virtually no remains of the curtain, apart from the stub ends where it abutted
on the Gateway and South-West Towers, and a solitary featureless fragment near the centre
o the south-east front. The wall does not appear to have been very substantial, the fragment
adjoining the South-West Tower being 1 *07 m. in thickness and 3 -96 m. high to the level of

the wall walk. One coped parapet stone remains in place here showing the total height of
the wall to have been 5-8 m.

• u here appears to have been no access to the wall walk of the north-west curtain from
either the South-West or the Gateway Tower. Access to the wall walk of the north-east

curtain was probably gained from the external stair which also served the first floor of the
Gateway Tower.

The line of much of the curtain is marked by a small terrace, in places developing into an
elongate depression, running along the platform edge just below the scarp top. This appears
to represent the excavations of stone robbers removing the wall footings.

The Gateway Tower (Figs. 6-9)

This is the most complete part of the castle, the walls of the tower, at the north ano-le of

the site, standing virtually to full height. The arch of the adjacent gateway, to the south-
west, also remains intact.

The tower is of three storeys (the floors having been of wood, their beam holes remaining),

5 2 m. square internally, and with walls a little over 1*5 m. thick. The north-west curtain
abutted on the south-west face of the tower, and greater part of which projected beyond its
line, thus covering the adjacent gateway. The north-east curtain appears to have continued
the line of the north-east face of the tower.

eas^ half of the north-east elevation of the tower was covered by a broad buttress-
like projection housing garderobes, now partly collapsed. At the north angle of the tower
are a pair of stepped buttresses, and single buttresses, now partly fallen away, projected

south-east at the east angle (above the line of the north-east curtain) and north-west at the
west angle.

The lower part of the south-west face of the tower, outside the line of the curtain, seems
to have been covered by some sort of projection, now fallen away. The indications remain-
ing suggest that this has been merely a thickening of the lower part of the wall, with a
sloping top at just below the level of the parapet of the curtain. The toothing of the junction

12 Op. cit. in n. 6.

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE

THE GATE TOWER
Plans

Scale

IOm

20tt

First Floor

Ground Floor

PFR,

Fig. 6. Ravensworth Castle: plan of the gate tower and sections through site.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

of the curtain wall with this face of the tower extends to almost double the assumed height
of the curtain (one parapet stone of which remains, in fact showing its height to have been
similar to that at its junction with the South-West Tower). This toothing most probably
indicates the position of a buttress above the curtain wall, as at the east angle.

The south-east face of the tower, the only elevation presented completely to the interior
of the castle, contains both the entrance to the tower’s ground floor and the remains of an
external stair which gave access to the first floor and probably also the wall walk of the
north-east curtain. Little of the stair remains beyond a projecting mass of rubble core.

The ground floor of the tower is entered by a doorway in the south-east wall with a
shouldered arch of one continuous swelled chamfer, and is lit by one single square-headed
light to the north-east and a cruciform loop to the north-west. In the north angle is a fire-
place set diagonally to the adjacent walls, similar to the better preserved example at second
floor level. At the east end of the north-east wall a square-headed door opens into the base
of the garderobe turret, now half fallen away (Grange states that a ‘winding stone staircase’
here led to first floor level, but there seems no evidence for this supposition, which probably
derives from the curve of the wall — suggesting a spiral stair — of the remaining portion of
the garderobe passage at first floor level).13

The first floor of the tower is entered from the head of the external stair by a shouldered
arch similar to that at ground floor level. In the thickness of the wall here, to the right, is the
remaining section of the garderobe passage mentioned above (one stone of the seat bench
remains, projecting from the wall), and to the left is a steep mural stair rising to second floor
level. This floor is again lit by a square-headed loop to the north-east and to the north-west
by a mutilated cruciform loop. However, on this floor, the fireplace, a simple square-headed
recess, is at the west end of the north-west wall, and to the south-east there is an additional
window, of a single trefoil-headed light under a pointed arch. At the east end of the north-
east wall, internally, there is a shallow square-headed recess of uncertain purpose.

The second floor of the tower is reached by a mural stair (lit by a single tiny loop) which
rises to a square-headed door at the south end of the south-east wall. The stair evidently
continued upwards as a newel in the south angle of the tower, but only part of the curved
inner face of the stairwell remains, in a very precarious condition in summer 1976. The
second floor is lit to the north-west by a third cruciform loop, and to the north-east by a
single light window, in this case with a trefoiled head beneath a pointed arch. To the south-
east is a larger window formerly of two trefoil-headed lights (the mullion is now missing),
with remains of window seats cut from the lower part of the internal jambs. In the internal
face of the south-west wall at this level is a single straight joint in the masonry of uncertain
origin. The fireplace is again set diagonally in the north angle of the room, and has a
shouldered lintel and a sill carried on corbelling. The chimney for the two fireplaces in this
angle is evidently carried up the interior of the turret which crowns the angle.

Although the walls of the tower appear to stand to almost their full height, there are no
apparent remains of a wall walk or parapet. Square turrets remain above the north and east
angles of the tower, and may have originally existed at all four corners — a turret on the
southern angle would have carried the head of the newel stair.

The entire structure of the Gateway Tower appears, from its architectural details, to be of
fourteenth-century date. However, an earlier date is suggested by an interesting feature
which can be seen externally at the foot of the north angle of the tower. The lowest courses
of masonry here rest on the footings of a curving wall, the line of which appears to be
roughly following the corner of the castle platform. The outer parts of the pair of stepped
buttresses here project beyond the face of the curving wall, and have been provided with
separate foundation courses (now falling away). The line of the underlying wall can be
followed for a few feet on either side of the corner of the tower, and to the south-east it

13 Op. cit. in n. 10.

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE

Fig. 7. Ravensworth Castle. The gate tower and gateway from the south-east,

( Photograph P. F. Ryder )

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

appears to curve round to follow a line a metre or so outside that of the north-east face of
the tower, a line which a few metres further on is taken up by the edge of the castle platform.

This curving wall is a problematical feature, and appears to pre-date the fourteenth-
century tower. Only one course of masonry — well dressed and squared ashlar — is exposed,
and no dating is possible without excavation.

The Gateway

The Gateway adjoins the Gateway Tower to the south-west, and consists of a single arch
3-13 m. wide. The arch is four-centred, and externally of two continuous orders, the outer
chamfered and the inner of a quarter-round moulding, with a mutilated external hoodmould
which terminates in defaced shields. The inner face of the arch has fallen, but the jambs
remain, showing a portcullis groove.

The South-West Tower

The V.C.H. describes this section of the remains as \ . . the south-west angle, where a
tine section of wall 45 ft. long remains in position; this appears to have been a projecting
bastion, for a section of wall 7 ft. long forms an angle with it at the north end, and at the
south end the angle is complete to where the wall turned east, as the moat indicates. This
wall has a drain opening into the moat and two small round openings splayed within,
perhaps for a similar purpose.’14

The ‘fine section of wall 45 ft. (13-7 m.) long’ was the west wall of the tower. Unfortu-
nately since the V.C.H. account was written this has collapsed outwards, and now lies —
large sections of masonry remaining intact — across the area between the platform edge
scarp and the small counterscarp bank. The foundations of the wall do remain in situ, but
no evidence of the drain and small openings can now be seen. Part of the north wall of the
tower (the ‘section of wall 7 ft. (2-13 m.) long’) remains standing, to a height of 10 -i m.,
and displays some interesting features.

The north face of the tower has evidently projected 1 - 8 m. beyond the line of the curtain,
the stub end of which remains (see above). Just outside the line of the curtain, and 0*3 m.
above present ground level, is a small circular opening, widely splayed internally — perhaps
a gun loop, covering the face of the north-east curtain.

At first floor level, at the east end of the remaining fragment of wall, is the double
chamfered jamb of a large window, two voussoirs of the outer order of the arch remaining.
A fragment of window tracery, evidence that the window was of two or more lights, with
pierced spandrels, remained in position a few years ago, but has now fallen and lies at the
base of the wall.

The internal dimensions of the tower appear to have been 10-4 m. north-south by perhaps
6-i m. east- west, the latter being an estimate based on the position of the mound which
presumably covers the foundations of the east wall.

The South-East Tower

Only the outer (south-east) wall of this tower remains, with the adjoining ends of the
north-east and south-west walls. The internal north-east to south-west dimension is 7-16 m.,
the north-west to south-east measurement not being obtainable without excavation, there
being no visible evidence of the position of the north-west wall.

The south-east wall has a chamfered plinth externally, and a few massive quoins (the
lower part of the wall has been stripped of its facing) remain at the south angle, which still
stands to a height of 3 -6 m. Until relatively recently this wall stood considerably higher,
and contained, to again quote the V.C.H., ‘a square window of some size, facing east’. The
eighteenth-century print of the chapel ruins reproduced by Grose also shows this wall, with

14 Op. cit. in n. 3.

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE 93

Fig. 8. Ravensworth Castle. The gate tower and gateway from the west.

(Photograph P. F. Ryder )

the rear arch of the window, a four-centred arch of considerable size. The wall above is
shown as obscured by ivy, but standing to a height of between 6 m. and 9 m.15

The upper parts of this wall (as with the west wall of the South-West Tower) are now
represented by a scatter of massive fragments of masonry across the platform edge scarp and
the ditch beyond. Sections of the jambs and the springing of the rear arch of the window are
still apparent. Other large pieces of fallen masonry, now grass and moss covered, now lie
inside the remaining fragment of the tower.

The Internal Buildings

The Entrance Court

This is a term of convenience to refer to the north-eastern third of the castle platform, the
area first reached on passing through the Gateway, and separated from the remainder of the
castle area by the two sections of internal ditch. Apart from the Gateway and Gateway

15 Op. cit. in n. 8.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Tower no masonry remains above ground in this area. The most prominent foundation

S arCa arC a §rouP south-west of the Gateway, which may represent a range of
buildings backing onto the curtain, or just possibly another tower. Other linear mounds
appear to represent a long building backing the north-east curtain (an irregular trapezium
in plan, widening towards its south-east end), and the line of a wall running south-west
from the north-west end of this structure, perhaps forming the division between two of the
parallelograms surrounded by buildings’ postulated by Whitaker. There are also indications
of other structures backing the south-east curtain, including the squarish platform mentioned
above which may represent another tower.

The Southern Court

The area south-west of the internal ditch seems to have consisted of an open area or court
bounded by buildings on at least three sides.

Fig. 9. Ravensworth Castle. Interior of the gate tower, showing fireplace.

( Photograph P. F. Ryder )

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE

The North-East Range

This appears to have consisted of a single long rectangular building, externally 32 m. by
9-3 m., the north-west gable of which still stands to almost its full height. Sections of the
lower parts of its north-east, south-west and south-east walls also remain, including the
southern angle. Grange describes this building as ‘somewhat like a broken down barn, in
shape’, whilst Bogg confidently asserts it to have been the Great Hall.16

The north-west gable contains two centrally placed openings, the lower merely a ragged
hole in the wall (whether originally a door or a window it is difficult to say), the upper a
square headed window, sections of the internal jambs of which survive.

The absence of decorative features, and the rough nature of the masonry of which this
building is constructed make Bogg’s identification seem very unlikely. The structure may
conceivably be Leland’s ‘faire stable’, although Grange, without stating his grounds,
identifies this with the South-West Tower.

The South-East Range

Only one small but interesting fragment of building survives here, a small tower generally
referred to (e.g. on the O.S. 6 in:i mile map) as ‘The Belfry’.

The earlier of the two prints given by Grose show the buildings of this range in a much
more complete condition. The structure he shows has the appearance of a chapel, with its
liturgical ‘east’ end in fact facing north-east. There appears to have been an aisle or chapel on
the ‘north’ side of the main body of the building, with the Belfry Tower standing at the
‘west’ end of the aisle. The ‘east’ window of the building is shown as being of three cinque-
foil headed lights under a depressed arch.

Nothing now remains visible above the turf of any building apart from the Belfry Tower,
and there are not even any evidences of foundation mounds or robber trenches, from which
the rough dimensions of the building could be ascertained.

The Belfry Tower is a small rectangular structure showing several puzzling features.
The tower was originally of three stages, the lower being 2*33 m. by 1-07 m. internally.
Only the north-west and south-west walls now stand to any height.

The lower stage of the tower is entered from the north-west by a tall and narrow arch
with a flat pointed head, a chamfered set back midway up each jamb resulting in the upper
part of the arch being wider than the lower. A continuous chamfer is carried around the
head and jambs of the arch. There is no trace remaining of any other opening in the walls
of the lower stage, but the north-east and part of the south-east walls are ruined almost to
ground level, and presumably there was originally some sort of opening in one of these
communicating with the body of the chapel. The chamfered set back in the south-west
jamb of the entrance arch is carried back along the interior of the south-west wall for about
half the length of the wall, ending abruptly at a sudden change in the masonry, from
squared ashlar to rubble. The lower part of the north-east jamb of the entrance arch is also
of rubble.

The second stage of the tower has consisted of a single small room, floored by stone slabs
(one survives) carried on an internal set back. On the south-west is a small rectangular
window, deeply splayed internally and with hollow-chamfered jambs, sill and head ex-
ternally. At the north-west end of the north-east wall a larger rectangular opening is shown
on Grose’s earlier print (his later and more distant view shows a window here of two lights
under a rounded arch, which seems unlikely). One stone of the north-west jamb of this
opening survives in place, chamfered externally and rebated internally. The position of this
opening suggests that it may have been a small doorway giving access to the roof of the
aisle or side chapel on the ‘north’ side of the chapel.

16 Bogg, E., Richmondshire (1908), pp. 176-8.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

The floor of the third stage of the tower has again been carried on an internal set back.
°*3 ni. above this externally, there has been a chamfered string course with a set back above,
just below the sills of the windows which lit this stage of the tower to the north-east, north-
west and south-west. Each window appears to have consisted of two lights with trefoiled
ogee heads, with a quatrefoiled piercing in the spandrel, the whole being contained under a
semicircular (.) arch Externally, just below the string course, the tower has been encircled
by an inscription, which Grange read as :

> Chr[istu]s d[omi]n[u]s, lh[esu]s, via, fons et origo, alpha et omega’.

Grose s prints show the third stage of the tower as more or less intact, although suspended
precariously above the void caused by the collapse, or removal, of the lower parts of the
east angle of the tower. Grange, almost a century later, states that two of the two-light
windows still retained their tracery. Morris-who probably visited the castle in 1902-
mentions that the head tracery of one of the windows still survived.17 This probably fell
shortly after his visit, as the V.C.H. description (published in 1914) finds the entrance arch
or the tower the only feature worthy of note.

The north-west and south-west walls of the tower remain, at the time of writing, to the
level of the sills of the two light windows, the west angle between these standing a little
higher, with sections of the jambs of the windows still in place. Four inscribed blocks
remain m place below, and other sections of the inscription, along with fragments of the
tracery of the two light windows, now lie scattered on the grass at the foot of the tower.

A building, the ground floor of which has been barrel vaulted, has adjoined the Belfry
Tower to the south-west, the toothing of its north-west wall remaining (the line of the wall
is indicated by a robber trench). An opening from this vaulted chamber, presumably into
the chapel, has been cut diagonally through the southern angle of the tower, and parts of its
sill and square head, together with its north-west jamb, remain in place.

The later of Grose’s prints (Fig. 4) shows the northern angle of the Belfry Tower as
being supported by a pair of buttresses, absent in his earlier view. If this detail is to be relied
upon, it suggests the taking of measures to present the collapse of the tower after the removal
of the adjacent chapel. The area of rubble masonry in the lower part of the north-east jamb
of the entrance arch may be a result of these propping-up operations.

The remaining architectural features of the Belfry Tower, and those of the adjacent
chapel depicted in Grose’s print (the assumption that the building shown was in fact the
castle chapel seems fairly safe, the nature of the inscription on the tower supporting this
identification) all suggest a date at least a century later than that of the Gateway and South-
West towers. The foundation of the chantry of St. Giles (1467) may have been the occasion
of a rebuilding of the chapel. Whitaker argues an even later date for the inscription around
the tower describing it as being in the ‘black letter of Henry VIII’s time’, and suggesting
that^its style plainly indicates that it was the work of some early favourer of the Reforma-
tion . Fie notes that the Parr family were attached to Protestantism, and concludes that ‘the
most likely conjecture with respect to the inscription at least is, that it was fixed in its
present situation by the direction of Sir William Parr’.

The inscription in fact appears to be coeval with the structure of the tower. The flat
pointed entrance arch might well be as late as the sixteenth century, but the two-light
windows above would agree more readily in style with the time of the foundation of the

The South-West Range

Prominent foundation mounds here indicate a range of buildings running south-east
from the South-West Tower towards, and perhaps as far as, the South-East Tower. A few
courses of one north-east to south-west wall near the south-east end of the range still stand

17 Morris, J. E., The North Riding of Yorkshire (1906), p. 297.

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE

above the turf. This seems to be the most likely situation for the Hall of the castle.

A confused area of depressions and mounds (with one exposed fragment of a wall
running at right angles to the curtain) to the north-east of the South-East Tower suggest a
further range of buildings backing the curtain wall. Lelands ‘conduct’ from the stable to
the side of the hall might very tentatively be identified as the open space between these
buildings and the parallel chapel range.

Outlying Earthworks (Fig. io)

A series of outlying earthworks to the south and west of the castle platform appear to be
associated with the site, although their function is not at all obvious.

(i) The Lower Earthwork

The west and south sides of the field in which the castle ruins are situated follow the line

y the YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

of this earthwork, which also marks the edge of the flat low lying area (a little above
400 ft. O.D.) which surrounds the castle platform.

The west section of this feature appears to have been modified within the last century,
t le 1857 O S. 6 in. :i mile map showing it as then being in a more continuous state than it
exists in today. The line of this part of the earthwork, and the road adjacent to its west side,
separate the marshy lowland around the castle from the main Holme Beck valley floor. At
the north end of this section (the line of which actually runs north-north-east to south-
south- west), just south of the playing field of the village school, a section of ditch with a
counterscarp bank on its east side flanks the slightly raised ground carrying the road. To
the south this ditch soon ends, and the earthwork takes the form of a mound running
alongside the road, with a channel along its crest carrying a stream — this flows away west-
wards beneath the road to join Holme Beck, although considerable leakage takes place
eastwards into the marsh. The diversion of this stream into its present channel may be a
relatively recent attempt to assist in the drainage of the low lying area around the castle.

The line of the Park Wall (the substantial stone wall surrounding Henry Fitzhugh’s park,
large sections of which remain) has also evidently followed the line of this section of earth-
work, although the wall which now runs alongside the road has been rebuilt and shows
little evidence of age. At the south end of this section the Park Wall and road turn away
eastwards and north-eastwards respectively, the stream flows in from the south, and the
line of the earthwork continues south-south-east across the corner of the field. The next
70 m. of the feature comprise a ditch (still holding water in parts) with a slight counterscarp
to the east. The earthwork then turns to run east-south-east, being rejoined by the field
boundary, for another 60 m. to a distinct break. Here a very slight ditch heads away north,
towards the castle platform, to be lost in the marsh, and the main line turns south for a few
metres, before continuing eastward again, the ditch now being on the south side of the
field boundary, which follows the slight counterscarp.

A few metres east of the point at which the line of the ditch is crossed by the field boun-
dary (there is a field gate here), the earthwork is joined by a slight but continuous feature, a
low rounded bank with a shallow ditch to the east, which runs south up the valley side to
join the east end of the Upper Earthwork.

The Lower Earthwork, continuing eastwards, soon peters out into a slight ditch, which
begins to curve north-eastwards back towards the fence again, before fading out in a low
lying area about 50 m. east of the field gate.

(ii) The Upper Earthwork

The large field to the south of that containing the castle ruins occupies an area of valley
side rising c.20 m. southwards in a horizontal distance of c.200 m. The slope has a concave
profile, and the gently sloping lower part of the field contains a few slight features which
are probably artificial, the most notable being a shallow east -west ditch, which runs for
r.45 m. from the west boundary of the field before abruptly terminating. A few metres
further east its line is taken up by a slight scarp feature which ends against the north to south
bank and ditch connecting the Upper and Lower Earthworks.

The stream which follows the western section of the Lower Earthwork rises at a copious
spring near the west end of the field, a dry valley continuing southwards above the spring.
If one follows the western boundary of the field south-west up the valley side, a small ditch
(which may dc recent) is met running alongside the wall. WEere the wall angles to run
south-eastwards, a more distinct ditch, with a counterscarp on the downhill side, turns to
run east, paralleling the contours of the valley side.

This is the commencement of the feature here termed the Upper Earthwork. After 40 m.
the ditch meets the dry valley above the large spring, and changes form to an impressive
bank crossing the valley. The bank is flat topped, with a long slope running down north-

RAVENSWORTH CASTLE, NORTH YORKSHIRE

wards to merge in with the natural contours of the hillside, and an almost vertical face to
the south, i -7 m. high, which shows signs of having been revetted in stone. Above the
earthwork the dry valley broadens into an almost level area, its west slope appearing to have
been artificially scarped (perhaps to provide material for the bank). The whole feature has
the appearance of having been a dam containing a considerable body of water. The bank is
now breached at its east end, where there is a scatter of large stones.

The line of the Upper Earthwork continues across the hillside east of the dry valley,
again changing form to a raised mound with a wide ditch on the downhill side, and a slight
ditch (which soon dies out) on the uphill, the total width being up to 14 m. This section
continues for c.8o m., passing a short gap in the mound (which may not be of any great
age), before suddenly ending. There is a scatter of boulders in the termination of the
ditch, including a sizeable Shap Granite erratic.

From this point a slight steepening of the natural valley side appears to continue the line
of the earthwork eastwards, but this may be a natural feature, perhaps geologically con-
trolled. The slight north -south bank and ditch, mentioned above, run downhill from here
to join the Lower Earthwork.

The Original Function of the Earthworks

The outlying earthworks are not easy to interpret. Without excavation it is difficult to
determine the date of the various features, and it may be presumptuous to assume a medieval
date for them all. The 1857 O.S. 6 in. :i mile map only shows the Lower Earthwork,
although it does depict field boundaries (with line of trees) following the lines of the Upper
Earthwork west of the east end of the ‘dam’, and of the north-south bank which connects
the two major earthworks.

The function of the Lower Earthwork (for which a medieval date seems highly likely,
from the manner in which it parallels the edge of the castle platform) may well have been
to prevent the marshland around the castle from draining westwards, and thus to maintain
its efficiency as a defensive feature. There may in fact have been a fairly extensive shallow
lake around the castle in the medieval period.

The Upper Earthwork cannot, by reason of its altitude, have had any connection with
the water defences of the castle site. The dam-like feature is puzzling, situated as it is in a
dry valley. Its function must have been to create a body of water, the use of which remains
a mystery.

The north-south feature running down the hillside is less certainly ancient, and may
simply mark the position of a post-medieval field boundary. However, taken with the
Upper and Lower Earthworks, and the west boundary of the modern field (with its slight
parallel ditch of uncertain date), it does help to delimit a roughly rectangular area containing
about 8 acres. This might possibly be associated with a hunting park attached to the castle
prior to the embarkment of the larger area of over 200 acres at the close of the fourteenth
century.

The Fourteenth-century Park

A full description of the late medieval hunting park, and the extensive remains of its
enclosing wall, is beyond the scope of this article. Much of the Park Wall survives, con-
structed of massive roughly squared stones and up to 2 m. in height. At the western angle
of the Park, where its boundary runs alongside a small stream, there are the remains of a
water mill, and near the southern corner of the area are further earthworks and evidence of
buildings of uncertain date.

CONCLUSIONS — THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CASTLE

Without excavation, any suggested pattern of the development of the site, based on the

100

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

earthworks and fragmentary structural remains extant, must be at best tentative.

Documentary evidence, and indications both in the form of earthworks and the earlier
wall underlying the north angle of the Gateway Tower, point to a fortified site of some
importance prior to the fourteenth-century date usually ascribed to the castle. This earlier
castle, perhaps of twelfth-century date (although the site may have Pre-Conquest origins)
possibly consisted of two wards with stone defences, the smaller outer ward being entered
where the fourteenth-century Gateway stands.

The castle seems to have been completely remodelled in the fourteenth century, probably

in its last decade. The surrounding marsh or lake seems to have been relied upon as the main

defensive feature, and the curtain wall which linked several square or rectangular towers

seems to have been of no great strength. An extensive series of internal buildings seems to

have developed, a sizeable chapel with a tower being constructed late in the history of the
site. ;

The castle was abandoned in the late sixteenth century, and the buildings rapidly fell into

a state of complete ruin, a situation aggravated by the attentions of villagers in search of
building materials.

Ravens worth stands out amongst Yorkshire castles as an important site which has
received very little attention. Excavation would help to elucidate both the ground plan of
the buildings and the history of the site. Even more important is the consolidation of the
existing remains— the surviving portions of the South-West Tower and the Belfry Tower,
along with the upper part of the south corner of the Gateway Tower, all may fall in the
near future unless some remedial measures are taken.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 51, 1979

101

LABOUR REGULATION AT HULL, 1560:

SELECT DOCUMENT

By Donald Woodward

Summary A letter seat by the Council in the North to the town council of Hull in August 1560 lays down detailed
regulations on service and wages for workers in a number of trades. Similar rules may also have been made for
York as part of government policy. The document is transcribed below.

Introduction

By the middle of the sixteenth century reform of government policy on the labour
market was long overdue. The various statutes of labour of previous centuries were difficult
to enforce and the last act, that of 1514, laid down national maximum wage rates which were
unrealistic for most areas.1 The evidence available, which is mainly for the south of England,
indicates that wages were well above the level authorised in 15 14. 2 To try to resolve this
and other problems in the labour market a number of bills were introduced into the first
Elizabethan parliament held in 1559 although none became law.3 Four years later the
second Elizabethan parliament passed the statute of artificers which superseded the earlier
statutes of labour and embodied many of their provisions.

Government policy during the period between the abortive bills of 1559 and the statute
of artificers, 1563, is not entirely clear; in part this is due to an unfortunate gap in the Acts
of the Privy Council for the period from May 1559 to May 1562. 4 However, some evidence
of government policy can be gleaned from local records and it seems that in the midlands
the government authorised, or at least did not condemn, a relatively flexible approach to
wage regulation. Justices of the Peace assessed wages above the statutory level of 1514 for
Worcester and Northamptonshire in 1560, for Buckinghamshire in 1561 and for King’s
Lynn in 1562. 5 In the north of England a firmer line was taken.

The document reproduced below is of crucial importance for the exploration of govern-
ment policy in the north. In August 1560 the Hull Council received a letter from the Council
in the North telling them to enquire into abuses in the labour market. The Council in the
North laid down a long list of orders to be enforced relating to labour. These orders are of
considerable interest for they both incorporate many aspects of earlier statutes of labour and
deal with many matters regulated by the statute of artificers. The document also contains a
list of wages to be enforced at Hull and the rates laid down were those authorised by the
act of 1514.

The wording of the Hull document suggests that it was a general order sent out to local
authorities in the north with a covering letter addressed to a specific town. Thus the list of
orders insisted that two Justices should sit each year ‘m every wapentake to enquire into
offences’ (my italics). Confirmation that this was the case comes from the York city records.
The York Council minutes are missing for the period February 1559 to February 1561, but
on 22 June 1561 the York Council received a letter from the Council in the North asking
why they had been Very negligent in the accomplishment of your duties in the execution

1 6 Henry VIII cap. 3.

2 E. H. Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins, ‘Seven Centuries of Building Wages’ in Essays in Economic History,
vol. 2 (1962), ed. E. M. Carus-Wilson, and first published in Economica 1955.

3 Journals of the House of Commons, vol. 1, pp. 54, 56, 58-61.

4 For a detailed discussion of this period see my forthcoming article ‘The background to the statute of artificers’.

in the Economic History Review.

5 Worcester, The Register Office, Guildhall, View of Frankpledge I, ff. 106V-107; B. H. Putnam, ‘Northampton-
shire wage assessments of 1560 and 1667’, Economic History Review, vol. 1 (1927), pp. 124-34; R. H. Tawney &
E. Power, Tudor Economic Documents, vol. 1 (1924), pp. 334-8; King’s Lynn, Town Hall, Council Minutes, vol. 4,
f 383r.

102

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

of die instructions sent you touching servants, labourers, regrators and others’.6 It seems
that the York authorities had received an earlier letter which they had chosen to ignore.

ic main response to this prompting came at the York quarter sessions of January 1562
when 1 13 workers were presented for taking wages higher than allowed by the 1514 act*
those presented were 22 carpenters, 23 tilers, 15 joiners and 53 labourers. The craftsmen had
been taking 7 d. or 8 d. a day m summer without food and the labourers 6d. a day;7 these

rates can be compared with the rates authorised by the 1514 act and presented’ in the
document below.

The evidence for Hull and York suggests that at least in the north the central government
was pursuing an active incomes policy during the early 1560s. Workers paid by the day
were to receive the 1514 rates and other aspects of the labour market were to be tightly
regulated. Whether or not this policy was attempted elsewhere in the north is not clear.
The records of the Council in the North have not survived and the council minutes for

ewcastle are missing for the sixteenth century. However, if a wages’ freeze was attempted
at Newcastle it can have had no more than a temporary success; during 1561 and 1562 the
corporation employed workers on various building projects at rates above those laid down
in 1514.8 Similarly the Hull Corporation was paying wages above the 1514 level during the
early months 0^1563 9 before the statute of artificers found its way on to the statute book.

The statute of artificers of 1563 laid down a flexible wages policy; wages were to be
assessed each year by the Justices of the Peace who were to take price movements into
account.10 The York wage assessment of 1563 has survived and demonstrates that the city
fathers put the experience of the previous year behind them and authorised wages sub-
stantially above the 1514 level.11 The first surviving Hull wage assessment is for 1570 and
the maximum wages laid down for building workers were the rates actually paid by the
corporation throughout the period 1563 to 1570.12

Document 13

In this year was sent from the Lord President and Council of the North Parts to the said
mayor and aldermen the Queen’s highness letters to put in due execution certain statutes
and laws expressed and declared in certain articles sent within the same letter, the copy of
which letter with all the articles hereafter following etc.

(Marginal note: A letter and commission from the Council in the North Parts to put in
execution certain statutes, etc.)

Trusty and welbeloved we greet you well. And forasmuch as we be informed there is
much disorder within our Town of Kingston upon Hull by labourers, artificers and work-
men much against our laws and statutes therefore provided, and also divers other of our
laws and statutes made for the wealth and quiet of our loving subjects, omitted, winked at
and not so looked unto by you as to your duties doth appertain. We for the reformation
thereof in sundry points have thought good to will and command you to assemble your
selves together and to take such order for the due execution of the articles herein closed
(sic.) so as the same be not omitted but the defaults of the offenders therein punished as
appertaineth. Fail ye not thereof as we specially trust you and as you will answer at your

perils. Given tinder our signet at our city of York the 10 of August in the second year of
our reign, (i.e. 1560).

! Ra?5; Y°r\ Cluic Rec°rds, vol. 6, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, 112 (1948), pp 20-1

' City of York Archives, Quarter Sessions Minutes, F2.

^ear County Council, Archives Department, Chamberlain’s Accounts, vol. 1, fos. 117-44

9 Hull City Record Office, BRF/3/2.

10 5 Elizabeth I cap. 4; see Tawney & Power, op. cit., pp. 338-50.

11 Raine, op. cit., pp. 58-60.

R C- Hughes and J. F. Larkin, eds, Tudor royal proclamations (New Haven, 1969), vol. 2, pp. 337-9.

Cltyu^eu°id ?ftlce’ upon Hull, BRB/2, fos. 30V-34V. I am grateful to the City Council for allowing

me to publish the document and also to the City Archivist, Mr. G. Oxley, for his helpful assistance on a number of
occasions. Spelling has been modernised throughout the document and numerals changed from Roman to Arabic.

LABOUR REGULATION AT HULL, 1560: SELECT DOCUMENT

103

The copy of all the said articles.

Articles to be observed by the Justices of Peace concerning the order of servants of
husbandry, labourers and artificers and others.

First that two Justices of the Peace at the least sit two times in the year in every wapentake
to enquire of the offences hereafter following and to take order for the redress thereof, and
for the due observation of all the statutes and laws hereafter recited.

And for this purpose the Justices at the next sessions after Easter a thousand five hundred
and three score to divide themselves into wapentakes and to appoint their next sessions
within one fortnight then following and yearly their sessions for the purpose to be kept a
month before or after Michaelmas and Easter yearly.

The Justices a fortnight or more before these sessions to make their precept to summon all
bailiffs, constables and two honest men of every township to appear before them, and the
sheriffs and bailiffs to return the names of the men warned and he that maketh default to
be amerced 65. 8 d.

Upon their appearing the Justice shall swear the constables and 2 men to present the
offenders within their townships concerning the articles and then to declare the articles unto
them. And to appoint the constable and two men of every township to receive the oaths of
servants to be observe (sic.) the articles. And also that they shall present all the offences at
the next sessions.

All such persons able in body under the age of 60 years not living by merchandise, not
using any manual occupation or craft, nor having lands sufficient for his living and exercise
and not being in service, if any such be required to serve they be bound thereunto or to be
punished until they will serve.

No mower, shearer or other workman or servant retained in service shall depart before
the end of his term without reasonable cause or licence upon pain of imprisonment. And no
person under the same to receive any such unless he have a true testimony declaring his
liberty. Every servant that at the end of his term intendeth to depart from his master or
masters for any cause reasonable shall give unto his master one quarter’s warning at the
least before the end of his term.

All persons unmarried being bound to serve shall serve and be retained by the year if they
be so required.

No servant of husbandry or labourer or other person retained shall depart and go from
one town to another and from one wapentake to another, or from one shire to another
without a testimony sealed for that purpose.

And we will that in every wapentake there shallbe a seal devised for that purpose and
put into the hands of such Justices of the Peace or other as the Justices of Peace shall think
meet, so that testimonial be made with the assent of one Justice of Peace whose name shallbe
declared in the said testimonial.

None to take more wages than hereafter is declared etc.

A chief bailiff of husbandry by year for his wages 2 6s. 8 d. And his livery, or $s. od. therefore.
A chief hand, a chief carter, a chief shepherd for wages by the year 205. od. and his livery
or 55. od.

A common servant of husbandry for his wages by year 165. od. And his livery (or) 45. od.
A master carpenter or mason having 6 servants under him and taking the charge of the
work to have between Easter and Michaelmas by the day with meat and drink 5 d., and
without meat and drink 7 d. And between Michaelmas and Easter 4 d. with meat and
drink, and without meat and drink 6d.

A free mason, a master carpenter, a rough mason, a bricklayer, a master tiler, a plumber,
a glasier, a carver, a joiner to have between Easter and Michaelmas 4 d. with meat and drink,
and without meat and drink 6d. And between Michaelmas and Easter 3 d. with meat and
drink, and without 5 d.

104

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

A carter to have by the day 3 d. with meat and drink, and without 5 d.

A mower to have by the day 4 d. with meat and drink, and without 6d.

A carter to have by the day 3 d. with meat and drink, and without $d. (sic. a repetition),
-bvery other artificer or labourer not before named to have between Easter and Michael-

xiaSi Yithe dayi 2^' With meat ancl drink’ and withoLlt meat aiad drink 4 d. And between
Michaelmas and Easter 1 hd. with meat and drink, and without meat and drink 3 d.

None to take wages for the whole day if he work not, nor for the whole day if he work
but the half day.

He that offendeth the premises, as well the giver as the taker, forfeiteth 205. o d.
Memorand . the statutes following to be put in due execution
First the statute of hue and cry.

Second the statute for examining of prisoners and their accusers and for bailment of
persons apprehended.

The statute for vagabonds.

The statute for ale houses.

The statute against unlawful games and maintenance of archery.

The statute against regrators, forestalled and engrossers.

The statute for highways.

The statute against rebellion.

The statute against false news, rumours and tales.

The laws and statutes for tanners and shoemakers to be put in execution.

The statute made against the carrying (overseas) of hides, tallow and leather to be put in
due execution.14 r

According to which said letter and articles the said mayor and alderman directed forth
t eir precepts to the sheriff of this town and county of Hull to summon and return the
constables and 2 of the most honest and discretest persons of every ward within the said
town of Hull and likewise of every town or village within the same county to be and
personally to appear before them in the Guildhall of Kingston upon Hull aforesaid upon St.

Bartholomew’s day being the 24 day of the said month of August mentioned in the said
letter.

At which said 24 day of August all the constables and 2 men of every ward within the

town and likewise within the county appeared, whose names with all the wards and towns
hereafter be expressed.15

All which said persons upon their appearance made the said 24 day of August were
aswell sworn to take the oaths of all the labourers, artificers and servants to observe the
statutes and laws expressed and declared in these articles and to be done without delay; as
also to make enquiry and present all the offenders in any of these articles before set forth at
the next sessions to be held here next after Michaelmas etc. Quod erit in Anno domini 1560.

14 After this entry, in a different hand, is the comment ‘a downe Cushion’.

^ Here follow the names of the representatives of the city’s six wards and eight out-parishes (Anlaby, Hessle,
Kirkella, North Fernby, Swanland, West Ella, Willerby and Wolfreton). Each ward and two out-parishes provided
two constables but the remaining out-parishes only provided one constable each.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

105

THE roles of a west riding land

STEWARD, 1 773-1 803

By Gary Firth

Summary This article is intended to demonstrate the wide range of duties and responsibilities of the eighteenth
century land agent by looking at the activities of one such steward in the West Riding. John Hardy (1745—1806) was
land steward to Walter Spencer-Stanhope for 30 years. His various roles as agent in buying and selling land, fixing
agreements, advising on tax and investments, or suggesting the exploitation of mineral resources are examined.
Documentation on these activities and on his position in iron and canal companies is provided from the family
papers in Bradford and Sheffield. 3

It is only in recent years that students of agricultural history have recognised the invaluable
contribution made by land stewards to the progressive farming system of the eighteenth
century.1 Contemporaries of that age had little respect for stewards, as this comment from
a Yorkshire freeholder confirms:

The tenanti y are veiy much plagued by attorney stewards who must have business or otherwise make it.2

In spite of such comments, historians of the English agricultural revolution are convinced
of the importance of the land steward, ‘as an essential ingredient of that complex process.’3
However, the number of regional and individual studies which substantiate this view are
few. This essay is an attempt to reveal the many roles and responsibilities of one land steward
on the widespread estates of a well known Yorkshire family, the Spencer-Stanhopes.

The muniments of this family are minutely detailed and date largely from the sixteenth
century.4 A summary of their origins and early development has been made elsewhere and
need not be repeated here.5 In 1641, at the time of the Irish rebellion, John Stanhope fled
from Ireland, accompanied by his faithful Irish servant, Thomas Hardy.6 Both men settled
at Horsforth in Yorkshire, where the Hardy family became butchers and skinners. The man
who broke with this tradition was William Hardy (b. 1714) who was made clerk to the
famous Lawyer Stanhope a celebrated attorney in the commercial world of northern
England in the middle of the eighteenth century.7

The subject of this present study is John Hardy, born in 1745 and the eldest child of
William Hardy. Before he reached his twenty-fifth year John had replaced his father as
clerk and steward to the aged John Stanhope, whose patronage had established him as an
attorney of some repute.8 In 1770 Walter Stanhope inherited the Horsforth and Thornton
(Bradford) estates of his uncle John Stanhope. About the same time he succeeded to the
more valuable estates of John Spencer of Cannon Hall in South Yorkshire. His marriage to
Mary Pulleine twelve years later brought him considerable lands in Northumberland and a
substantial shareholding in the Aire-Calder Navigation. Prior to his marriage, he had

1 R. Robsory The Attorney in Eighteenth Century England, 1959, pp. 84-96; E. Hughes, ‘The Eighteenth Century
state Agent , Essays in Honour of James Eadie Todd, 1949; G. E. Mingay, ‘The Eighteenth Century Land Steward’,

Land, Labour and Population in the Industrial Revolution, 1967, pp. 3—27.

2 R. Brown, General View of Agriculture of West Riding oj Yorkshire, 1794, p. 36.

3 G. E. Mingay, op. cit., p. 27.

4 The Spencer-Stanhope records are located in two repositories. The Sheffield Central Library holds those
documents relating to the family estates at Cannon Hall and the Barnsley region. Estate records, deeds, corres-
pondence etc., relating to Horsforth and Thornton are to be found in Bradford Central Library. I should like to
thank their respective librarians and archivists, Messrs. S. Fraser and D. James, for permission to quote from records
in their care.

5 R. G. Wilson, ‘Three Brothers: A study of the fortunes of a landed family in the mid Eighteenth century’,

Journal of the Bradford Textile Society, 1964-5, pp. 111-21. A. M. W. Stirling, The Annals of a Yorkshire House 1911
Vols. 1 & 2. ^ ’ ’

l Spencer-Stanhope Collection (Bradford) 2680 (1656).

7 R. G. Wilson, op. cit., pp. 112-4.

8 A. M. W. Stirling, op. cit., pp. 165-6.

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THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

completed the Grand Tour and found a place in parliament as member for Carlisle. Walter
Spencer-Stanhope henceforth devoted himself to the affairs of state and to the genteel
pleasures of late Hanoverian society. His newly amassed estates were a vast complexity of
farms, fields, woodlands, mineral rights, quarries and manorial commitments. He had no
hesitation in confirming John Hardy as steward and agent to all his estates, for Hardy
replaced the ageing Benjamin Dutton at Cannon Hall in 1778. 9

It was the employment of such a steward on a full time basis that enabled the proprietors
of much larger estates to leave their lands and still gain maximum efficiency and produc-
tivity from them.10 In the seventy years after the Glorious Revolution, the larger land-
owners had consolidated their estates at the expense of the small. This trend had made the
use of a land agent even more necessary. Such men required a wide knowledge on a variety
of subjects, from soil science, land law and taxation to management of tenants and general
personnel matters. Such men brought technical efficiency and innovations and centralised
the whole administration of a large estate. Nevertheless, it was not always the case; some
were better than others and all of them were subordinate to their natural environment of
climate, season and soil.

John Hardy’s rural upbringing had given the aspiring young lawyer a wide knowledge of
the land and a clear understanding of the problems of those who cultivated it. The land
market in the second half of the eighteenth century went through a more stable period than
in the years previously. However, a quick and accurate assessment of either a sale or purchase
was still a necessary talent. Like any entrepreneur, Hardy was responsible for making a
profit and to do so, he had to judge the volatile local land market, the availability of cash,
security of mortgages and many other factors, before any transactions could be undertaken.
A letter to Walter Spencer-Stanhope informed him that Hardy was negotiating a sale of
Dean Grange, Horsforth, to a Mr. Green for -£3,500 and Hardy believed that it was ‘a very
fair price and more than what the estate would fetch by public auction’.* 11 Two years later
his keen eye singled out an estate at a bargain price,

You know the value of money much better than me but surely the present scarcity cannot be lasting ; and
therefore cannot help thinking that the estate is worth £4,500 which is about 29 years purchase . . ,12

Not only in the buying and selling of land did Hardy advise his employer but also in its
reorganisation and improvement. In February 1777 he recommended to Spencer-Stanhope
that three closes of the Horsforth estate be combined.13 This consolidation improved the
productivity and use of the land, as well as increasing the overall value of the rent. On a
much larger scale Hardy was also a keen advocate of general enclosure of both open and
waste lands,

I promised Mr. Field to attend a meeting which will be that day held concerning the inclosing of Heaton
Commons.14

Thus the actual size of a family estate was important to him; often directly so, for Hardy
received commission for several important negotiations during his long service to the
Spencer-Stanhope family.

Not all of the leaseholders proved the best of tenants and the steward was responsible for
maintenance and condition of the lands leased by his employer. During the economic crisis
of 1801 many small tenant farmers were affected and were unable to farm the land according
to the principles of good husbandry. With reference to Holden Pasture at Horsforth, Hardy
wrote to Spencer-Stanhope

9 Ibid., p. 75.

10 G. E. Mingay, op. cit., p. 3.

11 Spencer-Stanhope Collection (Bradford). 2168. 17 October 1776.

12 Spencer-Stanhope Collection (Sheffield). 60585/21. 13 April 1778.

13 Ibid., 60585/10/12. 24 February 1777.

14 Ibid., 60585/23. 2 August 1779.

THE ROLES OF A WEST RIDING LAND STEWARD, 1773-1803

107

I understand you agree to Broadbent s going at all intents which unless you did mean to prevent them going
at all I think was politic as under their management the farm would have grown worse and worse.15

The duty of maintaining the quality of the soil, the drains, fences and buildings of each
estate was the most important of the many tasks of the land steward. Without the maximum
rent the particular estate was held at a loss. A good rent was always a pleasing item in
Hardy’s correspondence to his master,

Mr. Dutton s tarm I have let to a very sufficient young man for £112 tor the next year and .£120 for every
year after. The buildings are to be improved first and to be put into as decent repairs as will allow and in
order to make you perfectly safe the person’s brother who is a man of real property is to be bound with
him tor the observance of the agreement.16

An untidy estate of poor quality would not make an attractive purchase or lease, particularly
at a time when the land market was inundated by the many enclosure acts after 1793. The
chaige therefore of keeping the lands at their best held top priority of the many tasks of the
land agent. An appendix to this therefore, would be his choice of tenant. In the absence
and/or preoccupation of his master, this duty would fall upon him and the risk of a bad
tenant was his. John Hardy, rather than rushing headlong into a transaction was always
ready to wait until the right tenant came along. The state of the land market and of his
employer s finances, might possibly restrict this procrastination. Generally, however, the
correspondence indicates a slow, yet well-judged, period of negotiation until the final
decision was made. Hardy observed in 1777 that two tenants, ‘have both quit their farms
and leave the wheat sour. . . . Neither farm is yet let, wishing to have as many candidates
as I would and then to endeavour to close with the most promising.’17 After all, if he made
several wrong decisions he lost a remunerative position and the patronage of a man with
many contacts.

Another important concern of the steward in the maintenance of an estate was the
formulation of covenants.18 In addition to ensuring the soundness of the soil and the repair
of farm buildings, the steward was able to use the covenant as a means of general farming
improvement. The delicate problem of rental negotiations was often influenced by the
rubric of the covenant. Hardy, for example, was particularly pleased in 1775 to lease an
estate at Thornton:

I offered the whole at £80 p.a., Mr. Rogers was to be a partner and at £75 we closed for 21 years. An
agreement more advantageous than Duckworth would have been, I hope by much, for they are willing to
covenant for anything that can be reasonably expected.19

The steward, therefore, was an important factor in the eighteenth-century trend towards a
more progressive farming of the land. By the consolidation of estates, the enclosure of waste
lands, an attentiveness to the selection of tenants and the encouragement of new methods,
stewards of this time made a positive contribution to the development of husbandry. John
Hardy had concerned himself with all of these facets of the steward’s function and the
Spencer-Stanhope estates were the better for it.

The estate manager required a wide knowledge of the land and of the people who worked
it. Parallel with this management of the land ran the management of the finances which
came from it. The handling of the financial side of the estates was something more than the
remittance of the half-yearly rents.20 In May 1777 John Hardy perceived the heaviness of
annual interests on mortgages and on one in particular. He advised Spencer-Stanhope to
find some way of discharging himself from the great weight of interest. He even went as
far as to suggest that some part of the Thornton estate might be sold to relieve it. His
employer obviously took heed of this good advice, for by September of the same year the

15 Ibid., 60585/85. 14 December 1801.

16 Ibid., 60585/26. 2 November 1779.

17 Ibid., 60585/10. 4 February 1777.

18 W. Marshall, The Rural Economy of Yorkshire, 1788, p. 115.

19 Spencer— Stanhope (Bradford). 2168. 7 December 1775.

20 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60657/182. Cash Books 1782-8.

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THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

steward had sold three farms and land for £i,350.21 A further sale of Headley at Thornton
should have raised the £2,000 he required to discharge the mortgage with Mr. Bourchier at
York, and also leave -£1,000 for yourself’. This kind of negotiation was still being transacted
in 1802,

when you were at Horsforth you told me you had made another payment in diminution of Grammar’s
Mortgage please to tell me what you paid and when it would be cash in the hands of the Mortgagees as I
want to remit the interest due last month.22

at a time when he had a thriving legal practice as well as his commitments to his various
business ventures.

The financial side of his position must have caused him his greatest concern. It was not
without its problems and difficulties. Frequently, late payments of rents and debts left him
without cash to honour impatient creditors. He informed Walter Spencer-Stanhope in
November 1776 that ‘these things keep one so poor in cash that your Navigation Calls have
never yet been paid and they are now wanted very much’.23 This may have been due to the
inadequacies of the country banking system with its lack of specie. Whatever the cause,
Hardy had still the same trouble six years later,

One of your creditors hath given me notice to pay in £ 200 the 29th of this month which means I must
again borrow, for I have promised he shall have it.24

Moreover, his legal training in matters of financial law like the Land Tax and Income Tax
made Spencer-Stanhope even more dependent on him.

In the last decade of the eighteenth century taxes on dogs, clocks, servants and hair
powder had failed to raise income to pay for the war against France. In 1797 Pitt set out to
transform the tax system in order to solve the fiscal problem. One of his innovations allowed
the redemption of the Land Tax by the purchase of stock, costing approximately £20 for
every pound of land tax redeemed.25 Walter Spencer-Stanhope was keen to be rid of the
burden, but its administration posed numerous problems for Hardy,

But it occurs to me that the purchase of the Cannon Hall land tax must be separated from purchase here
at Horsforth as it is settled estate and you will raise the money for that by the sale of some part of such
estate.26

Six months later he freely admits to his employer,

I never was more puzzled than [by] the settling of your land tax.27

Thus, changes in taxation and the unsteady fluctuation in prices, land values, wages and
investment rates all affected the work of the steward. Yet his personal remuneration was
often out of proportion with his responsibilities and duties on the estate. In the summer of
1778 John Hardy was asked to be steward of the Cannon Hall estate in South Yorkshire at
an increased salary,

I mean concerning myself you propose giving me £ 80 a year as your steward to do the business of all your
estates. I have agreed and do agree to it though not from that consideration only for if I looked for wages
more would have been expected . . ,28

Hardy went on to thank his benefactor as a ‘servant in a dependent capacity’, but he hoped
that Walter Spencer-Stanhope would guarantee his position for life. Hardy feared a sudden
redundancy

I am not staking my future fortune in your hands which I should not hesitate to do but in your successor
who is unknown . . ,29

21 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 12 May 1777 & 1308. 13 December 1777.

22 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 6 March 1802.

23 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60585/7. 18 November 1776.

24 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 5 September 1782.

25 W. R. Ward, The English Land Tax in the Eighteenth Century, 1953, pp. 135-6.

26 Spencer-Stanhope (Sheffield). 60585/68. 6 April 1799 and Spencer-Stanhope (Bradford). 1893 n.d.

27 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60585/72. 5 October 1799.

28 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60579/1. 27 July 1778.

29 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60579/1. 27 July 1778.

THE ROLES OF A WEST RIDING LAND STEWARD, 1773-1803

109

Hardy’s salary of £80 was not an unusual amount for administering an estate of the smaller
gentry.30 Moreover, Hardy was operating on a part-time basis although

I was willing to be as dependent upon you not only as your steward as you would wish me but, what is more
was equally willing as an attorney.31

There were also other benefits. With the increased responsibility of the Cannon Hall
estates, Hardy was given a favourable lease of Barnby Hall near Cawthorne with its exten-
sive farm lands. However, his gratitude did not prevent his informing Walter Spencer-
Stanhope that the house was,

scarcely habitable and that to make it so some part of it ought to be taken down and rebuilt. ... I will upon
reasonable condition do it myself though I would much rather be excused. The farm no doubt will be in
bad condition Mr. Dutton will have had two years to take his will of it. Bringing it into a proper state will
cost me much money which no tenant can be expected to lay out without the certainty of enjoying it.32

It would seem, therefore, that Hardy acted out of loyalty to a family which had shown
patronage and financial help to himself and his father in the transition to the professional
classes. In the two decades after Hardy’s appointment his master accumulated a considerable
fortune and the old retainer continued as steward on the same salary. In 1800 Hardy drew
up a detailed schedule which showed a total income for the Spencer-Stanhope estates of
£9,169 minus expenses of -£2,230. 33 Almost a half of this accrued from the widely scattered
estates in Horsforth, Thornton and Barnsley. Various transport investments brought in
£3,282. Thus, John Hardy continued to administer the accounts of an estate which was
quite comparable to that of any minor peer.34 Hardy’s personal wealth and reputation had
similarly soared. His role as a steward must have been eclipsed by his legal reputation. It
would appear from his correspondence that he partnered Samuel Hailstone at Bradford
from 1782 onwards. His fortune, however, was made by his successful involvement in the
Low Moor Ironworks Company. In spite of this he maintained his loyalty to the Spencer-
Stanhope family, although on occasions this became an embarrassment. In 1801, as steward
he negotiated the sale of Horsforth timber to his partners at Low Moor,

If I can prevail upon my partners to offer T 1,000 would not it be better to take that price than to postpone
the sale to another year and then sell for £1,150 or equally so . . .35

His partners thought this too high a price and Hardy had to go back and inform Spencer-
Stanhope of their decision, adding, ‘I cannot help advising you to take it for your own sake.

. . . £62 an acre is a great price’. A similar situation arose in 1802 with the sale of timber.
Once again, Hardy found himself in a difficult position and could only apologise that ‘his
partners and you cannot agree about the wood. It is a thing from my situation I cannot
interfere in, otherwise the business would be concluded’. However, in this particular letter,
he happened to mention his intention of resigning as steward and resolved that his business
commitments were too much for him,

It is with difficulty that I bring myself to the resolution of mentioning to you what I have sometime felt
and which should have been noticed before, that is an inadequacy to do your business at Horsforth as it
ought to be done, it would give me great relief if some other person were appointed to manage your affairs
there. I should at all times with much pleasure assist him to the utmost of my power . . ,36

Hardy did not escape so easily. Walter Spencer-Stanhope realised how great an asset an
experienced and trustworthy steward could be. Moreover, Hardy, having held the position
for a quarter of a century, knew the estate well: a perfect replacement would be almost
impossible to find. Stanhope, therefore, would not let him go without a struggle. The
transition of the business to new hands and the inconveniences that went with it were

30 G. E. Mingay, op. cit., pp. 9-1 1.

31 Spencer-Stanhope (Sheffield). 60585/21. n August 1778. Hardy was earning £300 p.a. exclusive of his salary.

32 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60579/1. 27 July 1778.

33 Ibid., (Bradford). 2365. n.d.

34 G. E. Mingay, English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century, 19 63, pp. 21-6.

35 Spencer-Stanhope (Bradford). 2168. 19 March 1801.

36 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 18 January 1802.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

anathema to any estate owner. Consequently, we find that Hardy remained in the position
twelve months later. He, it seems, was still requiring his release from the post and finally
he had to compromise with Spencer-Stanhope in the following manner

Sir,

m Ty 'n‘ltter t0,r me ';> ypvitc myself from the management of your concerns but as you on
riday evening last expressed a wish for my continuance in some shape and at the same time that you should
have as representative resident at Horsforth, I am desirous to propose to you the following arrangement

inhm ”powe*er d ^ nommally your steward and that I should give him all the requisite assistance

Spcncer-Stanhopt; yielded to this compromise and accepted James Hardy as his steward
though not without some questioning of his character. John Hardy had to reassure him that
his former failures . . . arose from extending himself too far in business’. With his brother’s
guarantee, James Hardy took on the post of steward.

The mineral estates were equally the responsibility of the land steward. In the West
Kidmg of Yorkshire where the soil is often of a doubtful quality, this was particularly true
Indeed it was largely through the investment in commercial and industrial schemes that the
Spencer-Stanhope estate increased its income at a time of stationary rents and heavy direct
taxation. One recent authority has remarked, ‘Wherever natural resources permitted, coal
seams and other minerals were mined and blast furnaces, iron manufacturing, quarries,
lime-kilns, and brick-kilns were established ... It was not therefore merely by chance that
some land stewards branched out as entrepreneurs on their own account. . . ,’38 This was
certainly appropriate for John Hardy. Since his appointment in the early 1770^ he had been
responsible for the exploitation of the mineral resources on the various family estates. Both
at Thornton and Horsforth, he was doubtful of the consequences of an expensive mining
scheme. At the former, the pits were leased but at Horsforth, Walter Spencer-Stanhope

employed his own colliers and Hardy, as early as 1776, had little faith in their finding any
reasonable amount of coal.

There is not the
your notice.39

most distant prospect of a lower bed in Horsforth and your present Colliery is not worth

He encouraged schemes where there was at least a fair prospect of success, but he would
have nothing to do with an undertaking which he thought doomed from the start. How-
ever, he was acting under orders and the Horsforth sinkings continued intermittently to
the end of his period as steward. No matter how profitable he might think an industrial

scheme, Hardy drew a line when it affected the land. The driving of a new coal level in
1778 would, he believed,

make sad havoc with some of the best of the land and be attended with great inconvenience to your West
End tenants.40 7

He attempted to stop this by persuading Spencer-Stanhope of the false economies that the
coal would bring. Whether he succeeded is not known, but a further hint of disapproval
can be detected in his letter. Indeed this pessimism prevailed to the end of his period of office,
for in November 1802 he wrote,

They were getting nice coals at Horsforth but I am afraid like all your other coal concerns there is but a
dismal prospect for the Adventure . . ,41

In spite of his feelings about the coal schemes, he warmed much more quickly and
enthusiastically to a proposed scheme of copper mining in April 1777. He suggested to
Spencer-Stanhope that the ideal manufactory would be Kirkstall Forge. He estimated that
the county consumption of copper was 60 tons p.a. The cost, he reckoned at £7 10s. per

37 A. M. W. Stirling, op. cit. in n.5, vol. II, pp. 83-4.

38 G. E. Mingay, op. cit., p. 4.

38 Spencer-Stanhope (Bradford). 2168. 6 May 1776.

40 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60579. 27 July 1778.

41 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 6 November 1802.

THE ROLES OF A WEST RIDING LAND STEWARD, 1773-1803

III

ton, split equally between rent and wages. Hardy had it all planned, for he suggested an
alternative, that the mines deliver,

the copper in the raw at a certain price per ton which is paid at so many months and then . . . you would
have a power either of disposing of the copper yourself or they would take it back at the price given by the
East India Company which generally is more by jTi 6. 42

The profit of approximately per ton would be for interest on the money employed
which would be about 8 percent. His employer does not seem to have been attracted by this
scheme, as there is no further mention of it by either correspondent. However, it does go
some way in revealing how Hardy’s mind was geared to the increasing industrialisation that
was going on around him. As an estate manager, he was able to initiate his own industrial
ambitions within that sphere. He had invested in the Silkstone coals in South Yorkshire,
‘but the roads made him part with his purchase there’. He continued to supervise the work-
ing of the Silkstone bed and was learning all the time about colliery techniques and
management.43

It was Hardy who put Bradford on the iron and coal map for the first time in 1784. To
pay for the expensive failure of the American War, William Pitt proposed a duty on coal.
Hardy as an attorney, and with vested interests in coal, took up the fight on behalf of men
like Spencer-Stanhope and led the opposition of this part of the country. He foresaw many
colliery closures and heavy unemployment if the tax was made law. In view of the fact that
millions of pounds had been invested in collieries, he condemned the tax as a discourage-
ment ‘to the spirit of enterprise to which the nation owes so much . . . the consumption of
coals will indisputably be reduced one half at least in consequence of the great advance in
price’.44

A meeting was held in July 1784 at the Bradford Piece Hall, where a committee was

appointed and led by Abraham Balme. Another of the town’s industrial figureheads, John

Hustler, vehemently opposed the tax. In a letter to Hardy, Hustler had this to say,

My head is so full of this Coal Tax project that I sat down immediately from dinner to throw upon paper
a more enlarged view of the consequences to follow from it, if not given up. I know now whether I have
thrown any new light upon it but this I am clear on; no pains ought to be saved that may be used in the
least degree to defeat it . . ,45

Balme, in fact, contacted Wilberforce, the county M.P., who agreed to petition Pitt on the
matter. This was done and Pitt made further enquiries which led him to choose some other
tax by which the required revenue was raised. Bradford mine owners had played a
significant part in gaining the repeal of this threatening tax. Balme took some credit but
Hardy’s legal and active mind was largely responsible. It was such qualities, as well as his
cash, which John Hardy brought to the Low Moor Company in 1789.

Low Moor is situated two miles south of Bradford and for many years its mineral re-
sources were worked by Edward Leedes, lord of the manor. Leedes had never been able to
accumulate sufficient capital to implement the ambitious plans which he conceived for the
mineral wealth at Low Moor. By 1784 Leedes faced bankruptcy and his estates came up for
sale.46

The estate ‘in toto’ was placed under auction in December 1786 at the Sun Inn, Bradford.
Bids failed to meet the required selling price and most men wanted the estate to be distri-
buted in small lots. The sale was withdrawn. Two years earlier, John Hardy, as agent to
Walter Spencer-Stanhope, had suggested to his master that it would be valuable property to
possess. Over the Christmas of 1784, Spencer-Stanhope gave much thought to the matter.
He obviously consulted several of his friends for Mr. E. Collingwood advised him to weigh

42 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 8 April 1777.

43 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 2 February 1801.

44 York Minster Library, Hailstone Collection, 5.16.

45 Ibid.

46 G. Firth, Genesis of the Industrial Revolution in Bradford, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Bradford, 1974.

1 12

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

the matter thoroughly, of ‘the question you ask me about your enjoying in a purchase of
r Leedes Collieries 47 The advice was heeded and Spencer-Stanhope dismissed Royds
all from his mind. Ten months after the first auction the estate was brought under the
hammer once more. Again, a reserved price was not met and the lot was withdrawn
On a journey to North Milford in August 1785 Leedes had taken his own life. There was
some hurry to sell the estate and pay off creditors. Consequently, in the early days of
September 1789 the estate was bought by a group of Bradford businessmen for the
ridiculously low price of -£33,200.48 The purchase was made by a private agreement and
the original partners were John Preston, Richard Hird and John Jarrett, who were joined
shortly afterwards by John Hardy, and a former Independent minister, Joseph Dawson. It
was these two families Hardy and Dawson, which came to control the ironworks at Low
Moor and made it the leading Yorkshire ironworks throughout the nineteenth century 49
John Hardy’s investment in the Low Moor Company indicated his realisation of'the
potential and profit that lay in industrial enterprise, for it was by no means his first venture
into an industrial undertaking. His awareness of the transition to an industrially based
economy was shown m his early management of the Horsforth estates. No doubt encouraged
by his employer, Hardy did all within his means on the Horsforth estate to accommodate
t e demands of industry. The domestic textile trade was experiencing boom conditions
uring the early years of the 1780s. Many tenants were relying more and more on their
looms rather than their ploughs as a source of income. This naturally affected the architec-
tural design of the old farmhouses and cottages. Hardy realised the requirements of the
prospective tenants and, consequently, when leases were terminated he undertook radical
alterations to the cottages. There are frequent references in his letters to the necessity of
converting the cottages for the increasing domestic textile trade. He alluded to the work of
his carpenters m June 1782 on the conversion of the cottages which needed large garrets
to hold a vast quantity of wool’. And later, in 1800, Hardy informed Spencer-Stanhope,

One of your tenants gives up his farm and James Page, a clothier of much business is taking it He makes

whichhe?" fo rent wh,ch is advanced from £24-10-0 to £35 but he must have a ‘shop’ built for
which he is willing to allow £5 per cent.50 F

Hardy also encouraged his employer to convert the corn mills on his estates to spinning

mills for the woollen industry, and indeed to build new mills. There were, however earlv
teething troubles, ’ ;

lam sorry to tell you that either Sutcliffe or Field, your tenants of the New Mill has so bungled the machinery
that it will not turn the number of frames expected. To correct this they must either apply a steam eS
or amend their machinery. But this is their affair . . ,51 d ”

Walter Spencer-Stanhope, like many other landowners in the traditional industrial areas,
exploited his estates to the full. The subterranean wealth of the property often proved more
remunerative than the rental, particularly on lands in the Pennine region which were of a

variable quality. Gentry like the Spencer-Stanhope family thus made a positive contribution
to early industrialisation in this region.

Land stewards like John Hardy were also given the responsibility of a variety of ad-
ministrative tasks outside the general management of the landlord’s estates. They played an
important role in the administration of the poor law, particularly in settlement decisions and

the ejection of unwanted vagabonds. Hardy had cause to remind his employer of his
parochial duties,

4g Spencer— Stanhope (Bradford). 2168. 15 January 1785.

10 tZ'. Brad ZtigorpA36UlBradf0rd’ Bradf°rd’ ^ P' 57 “dJ' Palker’ Rambles from Hipperholme

Metals ’a'Ta^^^a Moor bommrks 1791-1906, Bradford, 1906, and C. Dodsworth, The Low

works, Bradford,' “0 PP' I2"64' & Hrth' °fL°W M°°r

Spencer— Stanhope (Bradford). 2168. 29 January 1800.

51 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60579/3. 4 June 1794.

THE ROLES OF A WEST RIDING LAND STEWARD, 1773-1803

113

it seems that those assessed above you, have, or nearly so, had apprentices; if so I fear an appeal will not
relieve you. I believe the direction of the justices and the parish officers is in a great degree the rule for putting
them out. Perhaps the best way would be to pay the ^10 and have done with it.52

Apparently Spencer-Stanhope did not accept such an incumbrance and asked Hardy to
‘fix’ it. Hardy’s reply was quite categoric; for, as an attorney, the law was not to be bent,

For ten years past the law has been settled by determination in the Court of King’s Bench that an occupier
of lands in a township in which he is not resident may be compelled to take an apprentice by the overseers of
the poor of that township.53

If Walter Spencer-Stanhope was not able to use Hardy to the full in that particular
situation, he found his services invaluable as an election agent. Hardy was to canvass the
tenants and channel their political support in the direction of the Tory candidate, who on
many occasions in this period was William Wilberforce.

Talk of a subscription to support Wilberforce. Applied to the Sheriff for a nomination meeting. Dispersed
to canvass. Got to Horsforth. Hardy there. Set to work.54

This was a practice which Spencer-Stanhope continued with James Hardy in the general
election of 1806,

I have seen James Hardy and have advised him to wait upon all the Freeholders in Horsforth immediately
and inform them that it is your wish that they should give him votes for the Older Members and to take
down the names of those who promise and those who do not.65

As well as playing an important part in the political affairs of the county, Walter Spencer-
Stanhope also made a practical contribution to the country’s transport and communications
network. There are many references in the correspondence between John Hardy and his
employer of the steward’s attendance at Turnpike Meetings throughout the West Riding of
Yorkshire. Spencer-Stanhope’s shares in numerous canal companies also forced Hardy to
make regular appearances at Navigation Meetings. In the autumn of 1794 the Leeds -
Liverpool Company introduced proposals for a new share issue,

You have until the 1st January to accept or refuse the new shares. I offered ten of your shares at T1^0 to
be paid for at Xmas and contrary to my expectations the Gentleman would not give the money.56

Hardy, however, had represented Spencer-Stanhope in the affairs of this canal since its
inception in 1770, and had probably helped to promote it before that time. Certainly the
profitability of such schemes was not lost on Hardy as he soon became a shareholder
himself

You have until the 1st January to accept or refuse the new shares. I offered ten of your shares at .£180 to
ance of the present year, allowing for the frost, the tonnage cannot be less than £5 >000 this year. We have
an assured view of profit and in my apprehension something considerable when open to Leeds which it is
expected will be in less than a year.67

Transport schemes, poor law and elections were all important elements of the administrative
responsibility of the eighteenth-century steward. Nevertheless, perhaps the most crucial
role which he played was as social intermediary between the upper-class squire and the more
doughty tenant farmers. The steward was able to provide the absentee landowner with a
realistic account of the economic and social conditions prevailing in his region,

Oatmeal, which you know is the life of this county advanced the last week, and this, at every surrounding
market and what is more extraordinary while the granaries are full. The patience of the poor will be ex-
hausted and then what will be the consequence.58

This food crisis had already been preceded by large scale unemployment in the region’s
woollen and worsted industries where,

52 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 9 March 1801.

53 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60585/82. 10 March 1801.

54 A. M. W. Stirling, op. cit., vol. II, p. 191.

55 Spencer-Stanhope (Bradford). 2206. 22 October 1806.

56 Spencer-Stanhope (Sheffield). 60585/43. 31 October 1794.

67 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 29 April 177 6.

68 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 29 May 1801.

1 14

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

towiT6^11 ^acturers are dailY turning off their weavers and spinners who, all from hard necessity fly to the

A complementary crisis in the agricultural and industrial sectors of the local economy in
1800/01 precipitated social tension and some uneasy expressions of discontent. Hardy was
swift to inform Spencer-Stanhope of secret and mischievous letters which circulated the
aiea. However, this capacity as intermediary between tenant and squire was not a one way
affair. Stewards often played a reciprocal role and represented the tenants’ point of view to
the landlord. Though employed by the latter and acting fully in his interests, a steward was
expected to function in an unprejudicial manner. On the evidence available, John Hardy had
the interests of all parties at heart.

Sir,

The Tenants of Thornton Colliery having at various times complained that they would not pay their
present rents without ruin to themselves on account of the very great falling off in their sales by reason of
new collieries being opened on various sides of them. I have examined into the truth of their representation
and am sorry to find them to be correct.60

Thus die land steward of the eighteenth century was something more than a manager of
estates and a collector of rents. He was the pulse which the absentee landowner was able to
feel for an insight into the health and well being of those who inhabited and worked his
estates. More than anyone else the land steward helped to maintain the important economic
links between farmer and squire, and on some occasions forged new social links between the
two, which removed much of the deference of a previously static society. Hardy makes this
point in a somewhat thankful letter,

my most grateful acknowledgements for the great and many favours I have received at your hands, for the

good opinions you have been pleased to express of me . . . and to have diminished the distance between us
more and more . . ,61

This picture of John Hardy has been drawn as a man with wide interests and knowledge
in many fields. To Captain Shuttleworth in August 1793 he wrote,

? was fav°u,rej! Wlth, y°\ns of 27* April in London, where I was almost half a year from Parliamentary
business of different kinds . . . Assizes and Sessions obliged me to postpone your rent day . . ,62

ie minding us of this busy life and of his fundamental occupation as a lawyer, a profession
enhanced by the increased legal transactions of the century and one which took Hardy into
so many different walks of life. Working so hard, the chance of a holiday was not to be
missed and being at Burnley in August 1796, he required permission to cancel a Navigation
Meeting. A few days off near the sea, he believed, * would be particularly agreeable on
account of having while in Lancashire an opportunity of going with a party,’ and where
does he take his rest but where millions of others have followed, Blackpool!63

Three years later his son John was called to the Bar and subsequently became Chief
Steward of the manor of Pontefract and from 1806 to 1833, Recorder of Leeds. He was
shown the same patronage from the Spencer-Stanhope family as his father had received
thirty years before. John Hardy senior retired as steward to the family in 1803 and later that
year his wife died. A final letter to his employer is indicative of the loyalty and service which
he had shown throughout his tenure as steward,

Conceiving myself in a declining state and that my time in this world will not be long I have had the accounts
adjusted and balanced up to 1st inst . . ,64

He died in June 1806 aged 62.

In order to gain the maximum from farming facilities, a high standard of estate manage-
ment was required, particularly in the West Riding of Yorkshire where farming was

59 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 17 December 1800.

60 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 3 October 1801.

61 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60585/24. 11 August 1778.

62 Ibid., (Sheffield). 60585/39. 31 August 1793.

63 Ibid., (Bradford). 2168. 30 August 1796.

64 A. M. W. Stirling, op. cit., vol. II, p. 86.

THE ROLES OF A WEST RIDING LAND STEWARD, 1773-1803

1 15

handicapped by the natural environment. A land steward, with a capacity for management
and a sound knowledge of farming and industrial techniques, was the solution for many
of the Yorkshire gentry. The Spencer-Stanhope family was fortunate to retain such a
steward for over thirty years. The value of their scattered estates in 1800 was a quiet testi-
mony to the industry and dedication of John Hardy.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

117

THE WEST RIDING CROP RETURNS

FOR 1854

By J. Phillip Dodd

Summary The crop returns made to the Board of Trade for the West Riding in 1854 are analysed. Land use and
livestock densities are compared for the six geological regions into which the Poor Law Unions making the returns
can be divided. The significance of the regional statistics and future trends are examined.

In 1854 was commenced the first collection of agricultural statistics in England and Wales
on modern lines. A pilot scheme involving the counties of Norfolk and Hampshire was
organised in 1853, and the comparative success of this lent encouragement to the Board of
Trade to extend operations to eleven counties in the following year. These were Hampshire,
Berkshire, Wiltshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, the West Riding of Yorkshire, Leicestershire,
Worcestershire, Shropshire, Denbighshire and Brecknockshire.

This decision represented a partial measure of success for those agricultural writers,
statisticians and economists, who had for long years been lobbying to this end. Among the
earliest of these one might count Arthur Young, who attempted to collect information
himself in 1788, 1789 and in 1795.1

There was not a little opposition to the 1854 collection and many farmers as in 1801 2
feared that the information so gathered might be the prelude to increased tithe or tax
assessment. Nevertheless Bills were introduced in 1856 and again in 1857, with the effect of
initiating an official system of collection of agricultural statistics. Neither of these received a
second reading and it was not until 1866 that the Board of Trade was empowered to obtain
Agricultural Returns through the agency of the Board of Inland Revenue.

Much of the credit for this successful conclusion of a long fought battle must go to
G. R. Porter and a group of progressive Members of Parliament. The more prominent of
these were, James Caird, C. Wren Hoskyns, J. D. Dent and H. S. Thompson3 whose Bills
and writings kept the issue before the public until victory was achieved.

II The Collection of the 1854 Crop Returns

In contradistinction to the ten other counties for which the statistics were obtained, and
for which the scheme was administered by a single Inspector, for the West Riding it was
considered necessary to appoint two. These were John Manwaring, based at Doncaster,
and Harry Burrard Farrell of Kettlethorpe Hall, Wakefield. The West Riding also was
dissimilar from the other counties in that Guardians, landowners and farmers proved to be
exceptionally cooperative.

There were some initial manifestations of disquiet but in comparison with the degree of
obstruction and downright opposition experienced by some Inspectors, for example in
Wrexham, where the farmers threatened to treat the enumerators as trespassers,4 the collec-
tion in the West Riding was effected without incident. ‘At first the Halifax Board had
doubts but reconsidered the matter and lent their valuable assistance.’5 6

1 Annals of Agriculture (1795) Vol. 24.

2 Dodd J. Phillip, ‘The State of Agriculture in Shropshire 1775-1825’, Trans. Shropshire Archaeological Society, 55
(1954), PP- i-3 1.

3 Porter, G. R. (1851), The Progress of the Nation 1851. For Dent, Hoskyns, Caird and Thomson see the Journals
of the Roy. Ag. Soc. ofE., and Roy. Stat. Soc. for 1854, 1856, 1863.

4 Dodd J. Phillip (1959), ‘The Denbighshire Crop Returns for 1854’, Trans. Denbighshire Hist. Soc. 8 (1950'!

pp. 1-19.

6 Parliamentary Papers (1855) Report of Henry Farrell, House of Commons Sessional Papers (1854-5) Cd. 1928.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

11 the case of Hemsworth Union, the Inspector appointed his own enumerators and was
able to report, I believe that the returns are in the main trustworthy . . ’6 In Farrell’s
territory there were 244 elected and 48 ex-officio Guardians, of whom only four expressed
signs of dissent. He called on as many Boards as he could, addressed meetings of farmers and
wrote many letters. Considerable support was lent by the Leeds Mercury in a long article
describing the organisation of the collection, with a reasoned argument as to its value to
farmers, and to the country in general. ‘As a yearly record of the progress of agriculture,
these statistics would be of an utility which every one must recognise.’7 With such aid, the
Inspector could note that ‘within the first fortnight every Board of Guardians had cordially
agreed to cooperate’.8 ;

The parishes of the West Riding fell within the administrative scope of 34 Boards of
Guardians plus three areas without a Poor Law Union. The statistics for the latter were
collected by the nearest Union. The information required was itemised on Schedules ‘A’
which comprised 43 categories.

Both Inspectors appeared well satisfied with the results and reported ‘in most instances
both landlords and tenants rendered effective assistance in the conduct of the inquiry’, and
... it appears to me that it is as perfectly and satisfactorily completed as its great importance

vlvtjvi V LLL •

Some 35,812 Schedules A were completed and it remains now to attempt to evaluate
the validity of the 1,587,590 acres covered by the collection. Cary in 180810 listed the
acreage of the Riding as 1,568,000, which is close enough to the 1854 return but the deter-
mination of any county area in the nineteenth century provides ample scope for argument.
In 1870 the region comprised 1,709,307 acres,* 11 in 1873 a House of Commons Report
listed it as 1,727,176 acres12 and in 1875 the acreage totalled i,7i6,389.13 In 1961 one could
either opt for 1,785,767 acres or 1, 606, 919.14 One cannot quibble at a lack of choice and as
it is not unknown in the present day for discrepancies of c. 1,500,000 acres in statistics for
England and Wales to arise,10 one can regard the 1854 total as a useful working figure.

The differences between the acreages contained in the respective Returns quoted and the
true area in each case, is to be explained as comprising the non-agricultural land. Under this
category may be noted, inland water, roads, public works, railways, houses and gardens,
and unenclosed mountain and moorland. While the 1854 statistics note 32,238 acres in the
category of houses and gardens, no mention is made of the acreage of industrial land
comprised of mines, spoil heaps, factories, and quarries, which form a significant element
m the West Riding. If one assumes the 1870 figure to provide the nearest approximation to
the acreage in 1854, the Returns represent 93 percent, the difference being a not unreasonable
proportion admissible for the several categories of non-agricultural land. Based on the 1841
Census the cover in 1854 would be higher at 96*3 percent.

If we turn to an element in the Returns, rough grazing, which may be evaluated against
other statistics; this is itemised in 1854 under three headings — common, sheep walk, and
waste attached to the farm. These provide a total of 307,578 acres, comparable with
Marshall’s total of 340,272 acres of high moorland in 1808. 16

6 Parliamentary Papers, supra. Report of John Manwaring.

7 Leeds Mercury , 28 October 1854.

8 Report of Henry Farrell, op. (it. in n.5, 5 January 1855.

9 Ibid.

10 ‘Communications to the Board of Agriculture' (1808) 4, p. 228.

11 Parliamentary Papers (1870), ‘Agricultural Returns of Great Britain’, Cd. 223.

“ Parliamentary Papers (1958), ‘Royal Commission on Common Land’, Cd. 462, p. 25.
f Parliamentary Papers (1875), ‘Agricultural Returns of Great Britain’, Cd. 1635.

^ Parliamentary Papers (1961), ‘Census 1961, Preliminary Report’.

ifi P^st, R. (f959)» The Statistical Pattern of Land Use in Great Britain’. Geography. 44 (1959), p. 199.
^Marshall, William (1808), Review — of the County Reports to the Board of Agriculture. 1, p. 340. Reprint

1969.

THE WEST RIDING CROP RETURNS FOR 1 854

119

Brown in 1793 17 quotes some 265,000 acres as waste capable of improvement for culti-
vation or conversion to pasture. In the 1854 Returns, common and sheep walk provide a
combined total of 265,600 acres w hich may be compared with 225,823 acres of commons
still in existence in 1873. 18

The category of rough grazing does not appear in the Board of Agriculture annual
statistics before 1892, and that of mountain and heath not until 1901. However, the Ministry
Returns for 195619 itemise 113,982 acres in common rough grazing, which does not differ
greatly from the 115,358 acres of sheep walk in 1854. Mountain common in 187320 was
given as 165,181 acres. This exceeds the 1854 total of sheep walk and waste attached to the
farm by some 8000 acres.

Although the Board of Agriculture statistics commence in 1866 they hardly provide a
reliable source until 1870 at the earliest. For example, a survey by the Royal Statistical
Society in 1867 indicated that 69-9 percent of the total area was in cultivation.21 Topley
who analysed the 1869 statistics22 arrived at a figure of 66* 7 percent while the Board’s
statistics for 1870 show 66*8 percent23 and those for 1875 yield a figure of 68*2 percent.24
Obviously the acreage did not fluctuate in this manner and although many writers on
agriculture tend to accept the statistics at their face value, they represent rather the psycho-
logical changes in the response of farmers towards the collection.

The Board civil servants were for long unable to make up their minds as to what con-
stituted the category of permanent grass, and the only other classification of grass to appear
until 1892 wTas that of temporary grass. In contrast the 1854 Returns took in six categories
of grassland: permanent, irrigated meadow, rotation, sheep walks and downs, waste attached
to the farm, and commons belonging to the parish. In view of the objections raised to the
Board’s statistics, it may be of advantage to compare the 1854 Returns with those of the
Board for 1875.

1875

1854

TABLE A

Percentage of Total Area

Permanent Temporary Total

Grass

Wheat

Barley

Oats

Corn

42*0%

5-o%

5-6%

4-5%

3-i%

U-2%

43-8%

5-2%

7-4%

3*7%

4-2%

15-3%

Charnock writing in 184925 quoted the acreages of grass, arable, moor and waste, and
woods and commons. While the grass percentage matches up with that of 1854, and the
moor and waste corresponds with the acreage total for farm waste and commons, his other
figures are wide of the mark and appear to indicate a decision to lump most of the rest as
arable. The percentages are as follows.

1849

1854

W ood/ Common
2-9%

Wood

4'2%

Urban

2-0%

TABLE B
Land Use Percentages
Moor/Waste
12*1%

Waste-)- Common
12-1%

Under 2 acres
o-9%

Grass

43-6%

Sheep Walk

7-3%

Arable

41-2%

Tillage-)- T.G.
24-4% 5-2%

The livestock densities for 1854 per 1000 acres are
Horses Milch cows Total cattle Total sheep Pigs
37 54 130 518 36 Head

17 Brown, Robert (1794), General View of the Agriculture of the West Riding, p. 13 1.

18 ‘Royal Commission on Common Land’ (1958), Cd. 462, p. 25.

19 Supra.

20 Royal Commission (1958), op. cit. in n.18.

21 Journal of Roy. Stat. Soc. (1868), pp. 250-53.

22 Topley, W. (1871), ‘The Comparative Agriculture of England and Wales’. Journ. R.A.S.E., 2 series. 7,

23 Parliamentary Papers. Agricultural Returns (1870), op. cit.

24 Parliamentary Papers. Agricultural Returns 1875, op. cit.

25 Charnock, J. H. (1849), ‘On the Farming of the West Riding’ , Journ. R.A.S.E., 9, pp. 284-308.

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THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

The corn acreage of 1854 was higher probably than at any time since the Napoleonic
Wars and was the consequence of an upturn in grain prices in the 1850s and the fact that
the seasons were uniformly favourable, harvests were good, fair or abundant, the wheat
area of 1854, as estimated by Lawes rose to a little over four million acres’.26

In whichever direction one chooses to evaluate the 1854 Returns for the West Riding—
they stand up, and in the opinion of the present writer they afford a reliable statistical assess-
ment of land use, which in many ways is greatly in advance of later collections.

i = Sedbergh; 2 = Settle; 3 = Clitheroe; 4= Skip ton; 5=Pateley Bridge; 6 = Keighley;
7 = Todmorden ; 8 = Saddleworth; 9 — Ripon; io=Knaresborough; n = Carlton; 12 =
Bradford ; 1 3 = Halifax ; 14— North Bierley; 15 = Huddersfield; i6 = Dewsbury; i7 = Wake-
field; i8=Bamsley; i9 = Penistone; 2o=Wortley; 21 =Ecclesfield; 22 = Sheffield; 23 =
Rotherham; 24=Gt. Ousebum; 25 = York; 26«=Barwick; 27=Gt. Preston; 28 = Selby;
29= Hems worth; 30 = Thorne; 3i = Goole; 32 = Doncaster; 33 = Worksop.

a6 Prothero, R. M. (1901), ‘English Agriculture in the Time of Queen Victoria’, Journ. R.A.S.E., 62, p. 28.

THE WEST RIDING CROP RETURNS FOR 1 854

121

III Regional Land Use

The West Riding comprises six major regions namely, the Craven Uplands, the Craven
Lowlands, the Gritstone Uplands, the Coalfield industrial zone, the Magnesian Limestone
Belt, and the Vale of York. As the 1854 statistics were presented for Poor Law Unions and
not individual parishes, the ensuing survey attempts to correlate the thirty-seven areas of
collection with these major regions (Fig. 1). For the most part this is a reasonably successful
exercise but it has not proved possible to isolate the Magnesian Limestone Belt, and this has
been merged with the Vale of York. In terms of a study of land use, this is by no means a
serious disadvantage, as the northern part of both regions is so covered by glacial drift
residual from the Vale of York Glacier that the solid geology is not a significant factor of
importance. The effective differences in land use thus arise from contrasts in the nature of
the soils as between north and south in the Vale, and fortunately in the combined region the
thirteen individual Union areas have proved sufficiently flexible to illustrate this distinction.

In the west of the Riding, the Forest of Bowland makes a marked salient into Yorkshire
and thus intrudes a sub-region into the Craven Lowland which has not been considered
sufficiently diverse in its land use as to justify separate treatment. The like contention may be
made in the instance of the Howgill Fells which overlap the north-west of the Craven
Uplands. Obviously in dealing with such extensive regions there must be differences
between one area and another, as for example between the north and south of the Gritstone
Uplands or the west and east of the Coalfield Zone. Where relevant the statistics are
accordingly employed to point such differences.

The Craven Uplands

This region derives almost entirely from the uplifted mass of Lower Carboniferous rocks
composed of the massive limestones typical of the topography of Settle and Malham. The
Silurian and Ordovician Slates which constitute the Flowgill Fells represent the exception
and the differences were clearly observable in the land use of 1854 for the two rock types
(see Appendix, Table C).

The statistics permit of somewhat crude generalisations as to average farm size, which is
obviously an unsatisfactory concept but which nevertheless provides a rough yardstick by
which to compare one region with another. As one might anticipate from the nature of the
terrain, farms were large livestock-orientated holdings averaging 115 acres and, with an
average of 43 acres for the Riding, were twice the size of the majority of the Unions in
other regions. Sheep were best suited to the physical nature of the country but densities
were hardly as high as what one might expect, particularly on the limestone grasslands.
Various reasons might be offered in explanation of this, one being that the 1854 statistics
were made up in the late autumn when flocks had been reduced. Reduction was necessary
because of the low feeding value of the grass from autumn onwards and over a century
later it could still be reported that — ‘the diet of the hill is of too low a quality to permit
satisfactory growth of the ewe lamb for the first winter of its life’.27 Further, lamb mortality
was a factor in lowering the size of flocks and in 1971 it was noted that ‘The severe condi-
tions which the ewes undergo during much of the time they are in-lamb are usually blamed
for their low lambing percentages ... it is seldom that a flock rears as many lambs as there
are ewes in it’.28

There were marked differences as regards cattle management, and for the Howgill Fells
farms, dairying was significant and related to the traditional cheese making of Garsdale and
Wensleydale, with the produce going to Hawes market. In the rest of the region tradition
also continued as an effective influence, Marshall at the beginning of the century reported
that ‘immense quantities of Scotch cattle were brought in, fed for one year, sometime two,

27 Holliday, R. and Townsend, W. M., Leeds and its Region (1967), p. 84.

28 Long, W. Harwood, Yorkshire Dales, H.M.S.O. (1971), p. 34.

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THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

ti° t^1f batcher.29 These Scotch cattle were bought at the Gearstones market at
Ribblehead and when fatted were sold at Settle fatstock show. In 1854, as 60 percent of the

herds from this part of the Craven Uplands were being fatted, it is clear that the practice
continued. r

Arable farming was obviously of little consequence and oats was the only significant crop,
taking up 69 percent of the arable land. Even so it only averaged 9 acres per 1000 in the
region, and seems to have declined considerably since the period of the Napoleonic Wars,
when occupying over 80 percent of the tillage, some four times the acreage was sown.30 *

The Craven Lowlands

Structurally the region occupies a Boulder Clay basin in which the original calcareous
drift has been leached so that the soils, medium to silty loams, have gley features, particu-
larly on the lower land.31 Rainfall averaging 62 inches on the Bowland Fells and 34 at
Skipton with temperatures failing to reach the minimum growing level until mid-April,
ensure that the region remains almost entirely devoted to grass.32 In 1854, grass was the
dominant feature as may be seen from Table D (Appendix).

The General View of 179433 considered that this was a region of large scale cattle grazing
farms, larger than anywhere else, having few sheep and with oats the only crop. By 1854
the picture had changed in some respects and although total cattle were above the general
average, milch cattle were below and the chief interest appears to have been in stores, which
at 81 per 1000 acres were well in excess of other regions. Sheep, however, hardly merited
the description of ‘few’ and were dominantly breeding flocks, kept on large farms. These at
89 acres were, however, smaller than the Craven Upland holdings.

The Gritstone Uplands

With the base rocks composed of the Millstone Grit and Yoredale Beds, soils vary from
acid peats on the tops with sphagnum, rush and cotton grass as the dominant vegetation, to
acid podsols bearing heather, while high rainfall and heavy leaching severely reduces the
quality of the rough grazing. The respective proportions of such land varied among the
Unions in this extensive region but the dominance of a grass economy was general as
was a higher proportion of woodland (54) than elsewhere in the Riding.

Saddleworth and Pateley Bridge exhibit the extremes as is seen from Table E (Appendix).
The statistics reflect both the low stocking ratio over all the region due to the poor feeding
value of the herbage and the influence of the urban market for dairy produce, in evidence
not only in Saddleworth but also in the small holdings in Todmorden and Keighley Unions
where milch cows averaged 90 per 1000 acres.

Altitude, climate and soils were factors which operated to maintain oats as the more im-
portant cereal, which even so occupied no more than an average of 43 acres per 1000 over
the region. With harvests later than in more favoured parts and sometimes, ‘as late as
November the crop still not gathered , as was the case along the moorland edge in 175 1,3^
it is not surprising that cultivation was largely restricted to areas like Lower Wharfedale.
Yet even here that arable acreage declined from 175 per 1000 acres in the Napoleonic Wars35
to 123 in 1854. Oats at 84 and 52 acres respectively, followed the same trend. At Haworth,
the crop was sown partly ‘for purposes connected with the feeding of cattle’,36 but the

29 Marshall, W. (1808), op. cit., p. 405-8.

30 1801 Crop Returns for Archdeaconry of Richmond, PRO HO 67/6.

31 Leeds (1967), op. cit., p. 64.

32 Raistrick, Arthur and Illingworth, J. L. (1959), The Face of North West Yorkshire, p. 58.

33 Brown (1794), op. cit., p. 178.

34 Essays in Agrarian History (1868), 1, pp. 236-7.

35 Brown, R. (1799), General View of the Agriculture of the West Riding. Appendix IX.

36 Churley, P. A. (1953), ‘The Yorkshire Crop Returns of 180Y, Yorks. Bull. ofEcon. and Soc. Research, p. 186.

THE WEST RIDING CROP RETURNS FOR 1 854

123

general practice all over the Pennine region was to use oaten flour for the common bread
of the people, a point made by the incumbents of Burley in Wharfedale and Baildon in 1801.

The Coalfield

This extensive region embracing eleven Unions from Carlton Incorporation and Leeds
in the north to Sheffield in the south, and in the west from Halifax and as far east as Wake-
field, although unified by the presence of a growing urban industrially based population,
comprised a vast mass of upland terrain with much diversity in the factors affecting land
use. The western moorlands, some 1000-1200 feet higher than the eastern areas, are adversely
affected by a higher degree of exposure and a heavier rainfall, which is 15-20 inches in
excess of that of the east. The soils vary from the acid profiles of the Coal Measure sandstones
and lighter drift, to the gley conditions of heavier soils derived from the shales and clays
and the Boulder Clay, which tend to be poorly drained.37

These physiographical and pedological differences were markedly reflected in the degree
to which the land in 1854 was either put under the plough or kept in grass (see Appendix,
Table F).

These differences were remarked by earlier writers, Brown noting in the General View
the poor soils and emphasis on oats in the Penistone area, with the pattern changing to
wheat on the strong clays, and a turnip-sheep system prevailing on the sandier soils around
Rotherham.38 In 1832, Cobbett rode from Todmorden to Leeds, passing through Halifax
and Bradford and thought the land was the poorest he had ever seen except for Novia
Scotia. ‘There appears to be nothing produced by the earth but the natural grass of the
country, which, however is not bad. ... The only grain crops that I saw were those of very
miserable oats, some of which were cut and carried, some standing in shock, the sheaves
not being more than a foot and a half long ; some still standing, and some yet nearly green/39
This was written on 23rd September and underlines the comment made earlier on the
lateness of harvests along the western half of the Riding.

In 1801 the incumbent at Ripponden reported that ‘most of the parish was occupied by
manufacturers and divided into small farms, the keeping of milk cows for family use was
preferred to the growing of corn’.40 The same point was made in the General View— in the
Halifax area, farms were small and farming was subsidiary to the production of milk and
oats were the chief cereal.41 Earlier still, Long had demonstrated that for the later seventeenth
century, in Coalfield inventories, cattle were double the value of corn,42 while in 1832
Cobbett commented, ‘all the grass appears to be wanted to rear milk for this immense
population’.43

These several influences are clearly to be traced in the 1854 statistics. Certainly in the
north-west of the Coalfield the demand of the urban milk market of concentrations such as
Halifax, Bradford and Leeds are well in evidence. (See Appendix, Table G.)

On the eastern side of the Coalfield, the better soils on the lower land and the lighter
rainfall were effectively reflected in the loss of emphasis of oats as the chief cereal and in a
more even balance in the livestock sector of the farming economy. A factor associated with
the easier communications on the lower land and the growth of urban population was the
increasing volume of town manure available for application to agricultural land. Charnock
writing in 1849 remarked on the great quantity of town manure available and bemoaned
the attitude of some farmers, who grew wheat on the same land year after year without the
application of any fertiliser whatsoever. (See Appendix, Table H.)

37 Leeds (1967), op. cit., pp. 65-7.

38 Brown (1794), op. cit., p. 81.

39 Cobbett, William (1832), Rural Rides. Everyman Edition (1912), 2, p. 277.

40 Churley (1953), op. cit., p. 186.

41 Brown (1794). op. cit., p. 71.

42 Long, W. Harwood (i960), ‘Regional Farming in Seventeenth Century Yorkshire’. Ag. Hist. Reu., 8, p. 10s.

43 Cobbett (1832), op. cit., p. 277.

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THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Holdings were medium-sized in the east but definitely small further west underlining the
differences in approach as between the dairy unit and the mixed farm economy. (See
Appendix, Table I.)

Charnock44 said that farms were small, being 10-50 acres near the towns and elsewhere of
30-50 acres. Carlton Union is of interest in that it comprised medium-sized farms focussed
on the needs of the Leeds market for milk and meat, about one third of its cattle and sheep
population were stores being fed for the town butchers.

The Vale oj York

The region is dominantly low lying and, although the western fringe has as its base rocks
the Magnesian Limestone, this fact is of greater significance to the south of the morainic
ridges which divide the Vale into north and south sectors. In the north, the influence of the
Pleistocene Glaciation is paramount in that soils are residual from the ground moraine of
the Vale of York Glacier, which extended south of York to the vicinity ofEscrick. Where
the Boulder Clay remains relatively undisturbed by the subsequent back-pounding of melt
waters behind the moraines, the clays are heavy or very heavy, and are thus in contrast to
the drift deriving from the Bunter Sandstone, which gives rise to lighter acid soils.

The soil distribution is further complicated by patches of gravel, especially along the
western side, while where the moraine was re-sorted by melt waters, soils may be alluvial,
clays, sands or peats.40 South of the moraine, melt-water outwash has re-distributed soils
so that here too the pattern is complex and in consequence farming exhibits frequent changes
in emphasis as one traverses the region. At the time of the Napoleonic Wars this was
considered as the corn district and east of a dine from Ripley southwards by Leeds,
Wakefield and Barnsley, to Rotherham . . . till we come to the banks of the Ouse ... is
principally employed in raising corn. About Boroughbridge, Wetherby and Selby .
there is about one half of the fields under the plough. Further south, about Pontefract,
Barnsley, and Rotherham, there are two thirds; and to the eastward of Doncaster, to Thorn
and Snaith, three fourths of the land are managed in a similar way/46 On the heavier land
the usual pattern of wheat, beans and fallow was followed and conversely the lighter soils
were applied to a Norfolk type rotation with sheep a strong element. The Vicar of Kelling-
ton for example, in i8ci reported — ‘the parish is all sand so that barley succeeds turnips’.47

As is noted in Table J. (Appendix), in the Vale as a whole and in contrast to most other
parts of the Riding, bare fallowing continued as an integral feature of the farming system.

This northern part of the Vale evinced variations also in the emphasis placed on cattle
and sheep as between the western and eastern sides, as can be seen in Table K, (Appendix).

Overall there was a strong interest in fattening stock and the system seems to have changed
little since Marshall noted ‘great quantities of Scotch Sheep from Teviotdale are fed in the
country, also ewes from Northumberland are brought annually, which after taking their
lambs are fed that season for the butcher. Many two years old of this kind are also fed on
turnips.’48 In 1854 the turnips were still being grown and fed while the butcher’s interest
was to be seen in the high ratio of pigs, twice that of the Riding in general.

Moving southward from the moraine, the importance of the plough steadily increased
but the significance of the various crops in the rotations changed as the heavier soils were
displaced by the lighter types. This is to be remarked in the instance of barley and turnips
as the proportion of free draining sands and gravels became a greater factor. Livestock
densities likewise increased as is indicated in Table L (Appendix).

44 Charnock (1849), op. cit., p. 301.

45 Holliday, R. and Townsend, W. (1959), York, a Survey. B.A.A.S., p. 37.

46 Brown (1794), op. cit., p. 77.

47 Churley (1953), op. cit., p. 189.

48 Marshall (1808), op. cit., pp. 405-8.

THE WEST RIDING CROP RETURNS FOR 1 854

125

Farms were medium-sized holdings and as far as their livestock enterprises were con-
cerned the emphasis was on store cattle which comprised 42-50 percent of the total stock,
and on producing lambs for the spring market, these forming 41 percent of the flocks.
Farm size varied slightly from 52 acres in Elmet to 63 acres along the Nottinghamshire
border.

On the warpland loams in the triangle formed by Selby, Goole and Thorne, there were
several differences observable in 1854, compared with the land use of the rest of the Vale of
York. The arable acreage of 655 at Selby and 737 acres per 1000 at Goole, was the highest
to be found in the West Riding, and the proportion of land under wheat rose accordingly.
Further the alluvial soils ranging from fine sandy loams to silty clay loams, were well
suited to the growth of potatoes and most writers alluded to their growth in this region.
Legard went so far as to say that ‘upon the culture of this root the success of the course of
cropping mainly depends’.49 He described the coursing as 1. Potatoes, 2. Wheat, 3. Clover
or beans, 4. Oats or barley. If one examines the 1854 Returns the statistics show the crops
as having relative importance as indicated in Table M (Appendix).

Thus by 1854 the system would appear to have been moving towards the ‘well known
basic rotation of 1. Ryegrass -Clover seeds, 2. Potatoes, 3. Wheat, 4. Oats, ... of the ea ily
part of the (present) century . The traditional system by which the warpland farmer keeps
winter-fattening bullocks to make manure for his potato crops’,50 was also in evidence.
Although livestock numbers were low in the area, the cattle at Goole had half their number
presumably managed in this way and at Selby the proportion was about 40 percent of total
cattle. In each area there was evidence too of the feeding of sheep drafted from elsewhere,
viz, lambs in the proportion of 126 to 73 ewes at Selby, and 103 to 42 at Goole, other sheep
70 and 75 respectively, all per 1000 acres. Pigs too, followed the trend of the eastern side
of the Vale in that at Selby (75) and Goole (57) they were much denser on the ground than
in the Riding (36) in general. Holdings were small, averaging 44 acres over the warpland
in general, declining however in the Selby area to 27 acres.

IV Conclusion

The overall impression of the agriculture of the West Riding in 1854 is one of consider-
able diversity. It is true that with earlier observers one could agree that the western half of
the Riding was devoted to grass farming; this was however, a generalisation open to a fair
degree of qualification. If one takes the line of division to run through Pateley Bridge,
Bradford and Saddleworth, although the land to the west was unmistakably under grass,
two broad belts could be discerned within this area. West of a line through Cover dale to
Skipton and Todmorden, occupation was in large sheep farms two thirds of which was
permanent grass and the rest in rough grazing. As less than 2 percent was in tillage, few
horses were needed and even in a ratio of 13 per 1000 acres this was just as well as oats,
virtually the sole crop, must have been a luxury fodder. Moving across Coverdale onto the
Gritstone Uplands the pattern remains one of large holdings but with little more than a
tenth in tillage, lacking the means to winter the stock they reared. The view south of the
Aire differed only in that the farms were small units focussed on the dairy trade with the
textile towns of Airedale, and in the south with those of south-east Lancashire.

The influence of the urban population of the textile towns between the Calder and Aire,
could be seen to affect land use in more ways than one. It was to be anticipated that the small
eighteen-acre holdings would be devoted to milk production, but with insufficient arable
to justify a horse population of any consequence, it was obviously the industrial factor
which raised the horse stock to 18 percent of the total for the Riding.

South of the Calder to Sheffield, holdings were small-sized mixed units with half the

49 Legard, G. (1849), ‘On the Farming of the East Riding’, Journ. R.A.S.E., 9, pp. 85-129,

50 Holliday and Townsend (1959), op. cit., p. 41.

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arable growing wheat but maintaining also a strong dairy interest, and although less marked
than in the north, the horse needs of manufacturing industry were also kept in view. From
here it was possible to look over the southern part of the Vale of York with its medium
large corn sheep farms, with the sheep folded on the leys. There was plenty of horse
power available at one horse to 20 acres, to cultivate or carry the wheat and barley, much of
the farm output in the form of bread, beer, lamb, mutton and pork being destined for the
urban markets of Chesterfield, Worksop and the Don Valley.

Along the boundary with the East Riding, and probably continuing to the edge of the
Wolds, farms were relatively small intensively-worked arable holdings with a dual em-
phasis on fat stock, pigs and potatoes. At Goole, Selby and York, for reasons no doubt
connected with port communications, the horse ratio rose to one to 16 acres.

In comparison with some of the other regions studied in England and Wales, the statistics
on land use in the West Riding present some surprises. The traditional importance of the
woollen industry encourages belief that the limestone uplands of Craven would carry
sheep in such numbers as to contrast favourably with most other mountain grazings. On
investigation this proves not to be the case; for example on the Old Red Sandstone Uplands
of east Brecknockshire,51 and on the same formation in Radnor Forest,52 sheep densities
were 50 percent higher than in Craven. In either region the land is above 1000 feet O.D.
and conditions of exposure are if anything more severe than in Yorkshire. Holliday and
Townsend03 point the difference between the ‘Pennine system of all-year-round stocking
of the hill at a low level of intensity and the ‘Welsh system of high summer stocking plus
wintering of the ewes on the lower altitude ffridd lands’. However, the key to the difference
in systems and densities probably derives in some measure from the nature of the feed
available. The same writers observe that ‘the Calluna-Erica-Nardus ‘blacklands’ provide
the main diet in autumn and winter, and that absence of Nardus and Eriophorum reduces
wintering capacity . As these are all species found on the Old Red Sandstone, and in
Yorkshire on the Yoredale Beds but not on the Limestone54 where Festuca-Agrostis form
the diet element in the ground vegetation, this indicates the answer. It also suggests that the
inability to winter sheep in such numbers to match the summer grazing potential, is
explanatory of the much higher incidence of cattle in Craven compared with the Welsh
Mountain regions.

As regards farming on the lowland, the intensive arable system on the favourable soils
of the Hemsworth-Doncaster-Worksop area compared well with the very similar arable
pattern of Swaffham in Mid-Norfolk.55 The like comment could be made in respect of
these Vale of York lands and the light soils system of the Bunter Sands arable region of
Shifnal lying along the Shropshire -Staffordshire border.52 Thus the most productive region
in the West Riding bears comparison with other lowlands both east and west. Yet the
farming of the Vale could not match the best of Norfolk as seen in Arthur Young’s ‘Good
Sands’ region.55 In respect of dairy capacity however, the intensity of stocking in the
West Riding Textile area was probably the highest to be remarked anywhere in the king-
dom in 1854.

After 1854 there followed a twelve-year gap before national collection of agricultural
statistics commenced. As mentioned earlier in the Paper, these statistics were unreliable
until the 1870s; thus the hiatus from 1854 actually spans some twenty years. In this period
a number of trends were observable which were of significance as regards agricultural
development in the West Riding.

The greater part of woollen textiles were produced in the West Riding and virtually the

51 Dodd, J. Phillip (i960), ‘The Brecknockshire Crop Returns of 1854’, Brycheiniog, 6, pp. 79-92.

62 Dodd, J. Phillip (1978), Shropshire Agriculture 1816— 1854’, Trans. Shropshire Archaeological Soc., 1978-9.

63 Holliday and Townsend (1967), Leeds op. cit., p. 84.

64 Dodd, J. Phillip (1961), The Natural Vegetation of Britain , E.P. East Ardsley., pp. 11-13.

55 Dodd, J. Phillip (1976), ‘Norfolk Agriculture in 1853-4’, Norfolk Archaeology, 36, pp. 262-3.

THE WEST RIDING CROP RETURNS FOR 1 8 54

127

whole of the worsted manufacturers were similarly based. The continuing growth of textiles
and of associated industries, and the expansion of the iron, steel and engineering trades in the
southern sector of the West Riding, were developments which of necessity demanded a
corresponding expansion in the labour force. The traditional reservoir of labour migration
was, in part, the agricultural parishes of the West Riding itself, the other Ridings and also
from bordering counties to the south. Thus in Sheffield in 1851, 49-0 percent of the in-
habitants over the age of twenty years, in effect some 36 percent of the total population,
came from beyond the borough boundaries, mainly from nearby agricultural areas. In the
second half of the century the bulk of the immigrants still derived from South Yorkshire
Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.56

Between 1851 and 1861 there was a 37 percent increase in Sheffield’s population, while
that of Leeds increased by 40 percent from 1851 to 1871. In the case of Bradford, the town
‘grew more rapidly than many other northern towns during the nineteenth century ... at a
rate sometimes exceeding 4 percent per year’.57 In 1851, Keighley had ‘54 percent of the
enumerated male population engaged in textiles’.58

The expansion of urban population was a catalyst which accelerated several changes,
some of which had been present in the agricultural pattern for some time. For example,
development land for industry and for urban housing was invariably secured at the expense
of agricultural land. ‘Between 1850 and 1875 the enormous expansion of the heavy industries
(in Sheffield) led to the rapid growth of the two townships of Attercliffe and Brightside.’59
In Bradford, ‘very few large holdings were available for residential building before 1900,
and all types of development had to make use of smallholdings’.60

Urban development not only swallowed up land resources but the labour dependant
on the land as well. The imbalance between industrial and agricultural employment was
clearly in evidence by 1851. Whereas 25 percent of the male population over the age of
twenty in the West Riding were largely employed in textiles, males in agriculture had
fallen to 15-21 percent.61 In Keighley, agricultural workers formed 23 percent of the
population in 1803, but in 1851 the proportion had fallen to 9 percent. In Barnoldswick the
trend was similar and ‘many townships in the now dominant textile area of the Aire Valley
had increased their proportion of textile workers, largely at the expense of agriculture’.62
Although agriculture kept its importance over much of Craven, some townships e.g. in
Upper Wharfedale, Upper Airedale, and adjoining hill districts, showed a decrease in the
numbers of agricultural workers.

The wages differential between agricultural and industrial employment provided the
necessary stimulus for the transition. ‘Agricultural wages in the fifties . . . according to
Purdy in 1861, show a remarkably close parallel with the volume of migration’.63 Bellerby64
quotes average wages for agricultural and industrial workers and by re-working the data,
it is clear how marked was the differential. Thus in 1850-57 agricultural wages were only
43-7 percent of those for industry. Between 1858-66 the figure was 46-6 percent, which
exhibited little change until 1874-78 when agricultural wages were 49-2 percent of the
industrial rates. In the Bradford area, ‘as large scale production superseded domestic industry,

66 Pollard, S. (1956) and Hunt A. J., Sheffield and its Region, Sheffield, Chapter 9, pp. 172-80.

57 Mortimore, M. J. (1969), ‘Landownership and Urban Growth in Bradford, 1850-1950’. Trans. Institute of
British Geographers, 46, pp. 105-20.

58 Lawton, R. (1954), ‘The Economic Geography of Craven in the Early Nineteenth Century’, Trans. Institute
British Geographers, 20, pp. 93-1 11.

59 Pollard (1956), op. cit., p. 175.

60 Mortimore (1969), op. cit., p. 109.

61 Smith, W. (1951), An Economic Geography of Great Britain, pp. 132-3.

62 Lawton (1954), op. cit., p. no.

63 Smith, C. T., ‘The Movement of Population in England and Wales in 1851 and 1861’. Geographical Journal,
117.2 (1951), p. 205 and figure 2.

64 Bellerby, J. R. (1953), ‘The Distribution of Farm Income in the U.K. 1867-1938’. Re-printed in Essays in
Agrarian History, 2 (1968), pp. 259-80.

128

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

smallholders were constantly giving up their properties in order to enter full-time cm-
ployment ,65

• }j ttCr su&£ests a re<^ucti°n in the number of smallholdings and although the average
size holding in Bradford in 1854 was 13 acres and for the West Riding was 43 acres, by 1906
the average for the West Riding was 44-5 acres. In 1875 some 80-5 percent of holdings in the
West Riding averaged 13-1 acres, and for the group in the under 50 acres category, the
proportion in 1906 had decreased to 757 percent.

Earlier it has been shown that in the Coalfield Industrial Region, small subsistence units
were dominantly focussed on dairying, an emphasis which the growth of an industrial
urban population enhanced considerably in the second half of the century. Whereas in 1854,
the proportion of beef cattle to dairy cows was 144 per 100 cows for the West Riding other
than the Industrial Zone, for the latter the proportion was 73 to 100 dairy cows. Taking the
West Riding as a whole the ratio in 1854 was 89 to 100 cows but in 1870 this had become
57 to 100. By 1890 the ratio of 29 beef cattle to 100 cows indicated that the whole of the

West Riding had decidedly swung over to dairying and the needs of the urban market
were paramount.

In common with the national trend there was a decline in the arable acreage and as New
World grain imports increasingly became a significant element influencing the decision
making of British farmers, crop ranking within the arable acreage likewise changed. Wheat
lost its traditional importance: thus in 1854 the crop occupied 25 percent of the arable
acreage, in 1875 the proportion was 21-3 percent and the decline gathered momentum to
show a figure of 15-5 percent in 1886 while by 1906 the acreage had fallen to 14-1 percent.
Barley fluctuated from 13 percent in 1854 to 17 percent, then declined to 15*5 percent in
1886 and in 1906 to 14-5 percent. Oats took up the slack as the demand of the industrial
areas for local horse traction expanded, and this is seen in the 1854 acreage of 14 percent,
which initially fell to n-8 percent in 1875, and then recovered to show 18*5 percent in
1886, and 20*8 percent of the arable acreage in 1906.

The period after 1854 was thus marked by the loss of agricultural land, particularly that
of annually leased smallholdings, in the face of expanding urban and industrial requirements ;
by a reduction in the agricultural labour force as workers responded to the differential
between industrial and agricultural wage rates; by the rationalisation of estates c.f. Lord
Scarbrough who between 1862-72 exchanged lands with his neighbours and thus could
establish two ring fences and reduce his farms from 21 to 17 ;66 and by the overall impact of
urban growth which expedited a change in agricultural focus from arable to dairy farming.

Appendix

Limestone Fells
Howgill Fells

Permanent

Grass

644-

Permanent

Grass

810

275

Common and
farm waste
15 6

TABLE C

Land Use per 1000 acres. Craven Uplands
Rough Oats %

Grazing (acres) Cattle Cows

160 9 153 27

690 12 78 49

TABLE D

Land Use per 1000 acres in the Craven Lowlands
Sheep

walk Wood Oats Cattle

r49 21 12 150

Sheep

636

655

Cows

Sheep

604

Ewes

66 Mortimore (1969), op. cit., p. 113.

(i966^epStfi’ T' W" <A S°Uth Yorkshire Estate in the Late Nineteenth Century’, Agricultural History Review, 14

THE WEST RIDING CROP RETURNS FOR I 854

129

TABLE E

Land Use per WOO acres. Gritstone Uplands

Rough grazing Permanent grass Farm size

Saddleworth

210

514 27 acres

Pateley Bridge

564

306 81 acres

Like differences appear in the livestock averages

Milch Total

Total

cows cattle

sheep

Saddleworth

97 145

73 per 1000 acres

Pateley Bridge

42 109

386 per 1000 acres

TABLE F

Arable per WOO acres. Coalfield Region

West

East

Halifax 103

N. Bierley 205

Wakefield 445

Penistone 296

Rotherham 543

TABLE G

Land Use per WOO acres. N. W. Coalfield

Union

Permanent

Rough

Milch

Total

grass

grazing

cows

cattle

Sheep

Oats

Halifax

558

255

127

172

112

North Bierley

727

155

192

TABLE H

Land Use of Eastern Coalfield Region per WOO acres

Union

Wheat

Barley

Oats

Turnips

Rotation

Grass

Cattle

Sheep

Barnsley . .

143

IOI

360

Rotherham

174

IOI

106

462

Carlton

156

328

TABLE I

Average farm size in 1854

Halifax N. Bierley Barnsley Rotherham Carlton
19 17 42 43 40 Acres

TABLE J

Chief Crops per WOO acres in 1854. Vale of York

Area

Rotation

Bare

Wheat

Barley

Oats

Turnips

Grass

Fallow

York to Knaresborough

West Riding

TABLE

Livestock

per WOO acres in the Vale of York

Cattle % Cows

Calves

Other

Sheep

% Ewes Lambs

Other

Pigs

West . . 154 37%

28%

36%

288

32% 27%

39%

East . . 120 28%

22%

49%

481

21% 35%

36%

TABLE L

Land Use per WOO acres. Vale of York

Area

Wheat

Barley

Oats

Turnips

Beans

Fallow

Leys

Cattle

Sheep

Elmet

136

348

Hemsworth . .

168

104

145

668

Southern Vale

168

109

129

628

TABLE M

Crops per WOO acres. Vale of York

Rotation Bare

Potatoes

Wheat

Grass

Barley

Oats

Turnips

Fallow

Selby . .

102

159

Goole . .

143

207

118

Thorne

152

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 51, 1979

131

‘THE OLD CROPPING SHOP’

By R. A. McMillan

Summary A print published c.1860 of the interior of a cloth dressing shop, supposedly that of John Wood in
Huddersfield, is studied and shown to be an accurate picture of processes used in the early nineteenth century. The
tranquil scene of domestic industry contrasts with the recorded reputation of Wood’s shop as a centre of Luddite
conspiracy in 1812. The interior corresponds fairly well with details of the actual building, demolished c.1895.

The black and white drawing of ‘The Old Cropping Shop’, better known as the cropping
shop or cloth dressing shop of John Wood at Longroyd Bridge, Huddersfield, is one of the
most familiar pictorial sources available to the historian of the West Riding woollen
industry in the early nineteenth century (Fig. i). For something like ninety years it has
enjoyed a growing reputation as an historical illustration which has led to its reproduction
not only in books and articles at all levels from the popular to the academic, but in the
formats of teaching kit, filmstrip, postcard, television production and museum display.
Its importance is two-fold. It is accepted on the one hand as an authentic view of the interior
of one of the famous places of Fluddersfield Luddism, and on the other as an important
record of the interior of a West Riding dressing shop of the period of the nineteenth century
immediately before the traditional hand processes began to be replaced by mechanical
finishing methods. Yet with a single limited exception, the work itself has never been
examined in detail, and a number of questions arising from it have remained untouched.
The aim of the present note is to look at it not only in its roles as a work of historical realism,
but to suggest that it should properly be seen in terms of the Victorian fashion of using art
as a means of moralising and story telling for a contemporary public.

‘The Old Cropping Shop’ was published in Huddersfield between about 1850, when the
publisher Benjamin Brown first appears in the local directories, and 1882, the year in which
the lithographer George Falkner of Manchester died.1 It was based on a painting by an artist
called J. Thornton, said to have been a John Thornton of Paddock, Huddersfield.2 Brown,
who was one of the town’s leading booksellers in the second half of the century, also sold
the print at his shop in Huddersfield, and five originals, all still in, or from the Huddersfield
district, are known to the writer.3

The picture shows an interior consisting of a main room with part of an adjoining room
seen through an opening on the right. The floor is flagged, and this probably indicates a
single-storeyed building, for the interior is open to the underside of the roof supported on
wooden beams and rafters. Marked on one of the beams are the two inscriptions ‘Hood
1799’ and ‘Johney Green’s web June 2d. 1810’. The walls are plastered. The main interior is
lit by a window consisting of four lights divided by squared mullions, and by a tall, thin
window on the left corresponding in size to one of the mullioned lights. There is also a
window in the second room. Except for the two sash windows in the two middle lights of
the large window, all the windows have small square panes of glass. Through one of the
windows can be seen clouds and the outline of a building.

1 Falkner set up in business in Manchester in 1843. He became fairly well known in the north of England and
‘The Old Cropping Shop’ is not the only piece of printing work associated with the Huddersfield district on which
his name appears. My thanks are due to Manchester Public Libraries for kindly supplying a copy of an obituary
notice.

2 This identification appears on a museum label written in 1911 by Ling Roth of the Bankfield Museum, Halifax.
However, no clue is given as to the source of the information. I am grateful to Mr. J. C. S. Magson of Calderdale
Museums and Art Galleries Service who has sent me a copy of this label.

3 Two belong to Kirklees Libraries and Museums Service; a third is at the Colne Valley Museum, Golcar, and a
fourth, originally from the Holme Valley, is now in the Bankfield Museum. A fifth copy is owned by Mr. J. Roberts
of Huddersfield, who has kindly let me inspect it.

132

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

PS i

Fig. i.

The Old Cropping Shop’: lithograph by G. Falkner, <r.i86o
(Photograph Kirklees Library and Museums Service )

‘the old cropping shop’

133

The immediate interest is focussed on a small group of figures who occupy the centre of
the composition. All but one of them are cloth dressers, mostly carrying out different parts
of the work of the dressing shop. However, one man seated on some cloth pieces in the
foreground is eating from a parcel of food spread across his knees, and a girl standing amidst
the group of men carries a jug containing refreshment which she is about to offer round,
indicating with her right hand the seated figure. Only the man at the ‘nelly’ with his back
turned, and the boy or youth in the second room are still oblivious of her presence. An
atmosphere of quiet normality prevails. The over-exaggerated perspective of the floor, like
the awkwardness in the handling of parts of the detail, perhaps betrays the relatively un-
skilled hand of the local artist.

What is initially curious about the scene is the complete absence of any hint of the history
of violence and murder associated with Wood’s dressing shop during the Huddersfield
Luddite outbreak of 1812. Yet since as early as the 1880s, when the work was probably
reproduced for the first time as an historical illustration, in the second edition of Frank
Peel’s Risings of the Luddites, 4 historians and publishers have generally known it simply as
Wood’s cropping shop, and the actual title has virtually disappeared from use. Yet the
justification for this has never been made apparent.

Peel himself says only that the picture was supplied to him by his friend J. J. Stead, the
Heckmondwike antiquarian, presumably after the publication of the original edition of
1880 in which it does not appear.5 The nature of Stead’s historical interests, particularly his
active interest in the Bronte places of the West Riding, may have led to his coming across
the work in the Huddersfield district. Stead presumably learned then of its association with
Luddism, and it can only be assumed that this was something that was known at the time,
and was probably one of the main selling points of the original print. Peel’s reference to the
precise location of Wood’s dressing shop at Longroyd Bridge may be open to ambiguity,
but it points to the fact that until the mid-i890s, the building itself was still standing, and
was known to the Huddersfield antiquarians of the day.6 Presumably, therefore, the accept-
ance of The Old Cropping Shop’ as Wood’s dressing shop was based on direct evidence.

It is still possible for us to compare parts of the exterior at least of Wood’s dressing shop
with the interior of ‘The Old Cropping Shop’, thanks to the existence of two photographs
taken some years before its demolition.7 Like ‘The Old Cropping Shop’ seems to have
been, Wood’s former dressing shop was a single-storeyed building, constructed and roofed
in stone (Fig. 2). It lay alongside the bank of the river. Access to the front was through an
open space or yard serving a number of neighbouring buildings. The general appearance
and plan are fairly well what one would expect from looking at the print. There are some
similarities between the windows seen in one of the photographs and those in ‘The Old
Cropping Shop’. The rear wall overlooking the river had a series of five three-light win-
dows, mostly blocked up. However, there were openings in three of the sets of windows at

4 Peel, F., The Risings of the Luddites (2nd ed., Heckmondwike 1888), frontispiece. It also appeared in the third

edition of 1895.

6 Peel, 2nd ed., preface.

6 Peel, 2nd ed., 11. Peel says it stood on the waterside not far from the highway, and was then used as a place for
depositing lumber. An O.S. plan of 1851 shows a timber yard next to the road at the western end of Starkey’s
mills lying between the canal on the north and the river Colne to the south. However, the group of buildings shown
in the two photographs referred to below in the text, can be found from this plan on the south bank of the river
on the site of the present transport authority premises. This is where the Huddersfield historian D. F. E. Sykes
placed Wood s dressing shop. Ling Roth says that Starkey’s built and owned the former dressing shop, and refers
to it as still being in existence in 1911. But this seems doubtful in view of the Huddersfield evidence from Sykes
and from the notes belonging to the two photographs, saying that the place was demolished in the 1890s, and that
the corporation tramways power station opened in 1901 stood on the site. The month and the year of demolition
are marked on one of the photographs.

7 Reference has been made to copies at the Tolson Memorial Museum, Huddersfield, which have old museum
labels describing their subject as ‘The Old Cropping Shop, Longroyd Bridge’. This is a nice example of the way in
which the identities of ‘The Old Cropping Shop’ and Wood’s dressing shop have become merged in local usage.
The photographs are said to have been taken in 1891 by Aid. F. Lawton.

134

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

one end of the building, and the spacing of these corresponds fairly closely with that of the
three windows in the print. The proportions of the lights are the same. But whereas the
central window in the artist’s interior consists of four lights, the central window in the
photograph was of two lights with the dividing mullion removed. The flanking windows
consisted of a single light identical to the thin window on the left in ‘The Old Cropping
Shop , and another double-light window without a mullion. But the latter occupies the
position that would have been taken by the tall, thin window according to the print. The
evidence linking ‘The Old Cropping Shop’ with Wood’s dressing shop therefore remains
circumstantial, though the possibility of artistic licence, or of there having been other
windows not seen in the photographs, remains open also.

Fig. 2. Exterior of Wood s dressing shop, Longroyd Bridge, from north, 1891.

( Photograph F. Lairton )

But in any case, the picture was not only concerned with Luddism. Part of its purpose was
clearly to record the methods and practices of the dressing shop itself. Each of the main
processes in the dressing of woollen cloth by hand is shown in convincing and thorough
detail. Although the dating of the work seems to show that it is a retrospective view of its
subject, it bears comparison with George Walker’s dressing shop interiors published in 1814,
in which, however, the detail is sometimes treated fairly freely. The accuracy of ‘The Old
Cropping Shop’ is supported not only by documentary and graphic sources, but by com-
parison with surviving examples of objects shown in the print, such as the nelly and the
shears. Only the drawing of the teazles in the teazle handles is not as specific as it might have
been, and this may have been due to the unfamiliarity of the lithographer working from the
original painting.

The process began with the wetting or decking’ of the piece with water from a can, in
order to dampen it for raising. But before this, it was drained over the container seen in the
bottom left-hand corner. The raising of the nap was carried out at the ‘nelly’ or raising

‘the old cropping shop’

135

frame propped against the rear wall. On the generally cheaper cloths of the West Riding,
raising was carried out mainly with raising cards fitted with wire teeth. This is the method
being used at the nelly, but teazles were also used, for the final raising at least. A row of
teazle ‘handles’ can be seen above the main window, whilst others, probably in the process
of being cleaned of flocks, stand in the rack in the foreground. The setting of the handles was
carried out on the small table in the light of the window to the left, beside which are piled
end-on the cylindrical ‘stavs’ of teazles supplied from the growers. The arrangement of the
‘shearboards’ standing in pairs on trestles, each with a footboard for the cropper to stand on
off the wet floor, can be seen clearly. Resting on the lower shear blades are the heart-shaped
lead shearing weights needed to give an extra purchase on the cloth while it was being cut.
To prevent the cloth moving, it was pinned to the padded top of the shearboard with small
double-ended hooks called ‘habicks’ on one list, and held by hooks on straps on the other.
In the second room, a boy or youth is working with the ‘papers’ used in the pressing which
was the final major operation.

Here therefore are two related but not explicitly connected aspects of the history of the
Huddersfield district, with Wood’s dressing shop oddly divorced from its main historical
associations. But the various elements in the work fall into place when seen in the context of
the contemporary fondness for treating art as a means of putting across a moral point, with
clues deliberately inserted as a guide to the meaning, the whole being expressed within a
framework of careful realism. Here the significance of the roof beam inscriptions appears to
be that the scene, although set in Wood’s dressing shop, belongs to the years immediately
before the Luddite fury of 1812. The ‘old’ cropping shop of the title is therefore not only
the ‘old’ cropping shop of the pre-industrial age, but the ‘old’ cropping shop of the time
before the Luddites.

Lhe handling of the Luddite theme can be related to the growing interest in the subject
of Luddism which developed in the West Riding in the quieter decades after the middle of
the century. One of the earliest signs of this interest was probably Charlotte Bronte’s novel
Shirley , published in 1849, and based on events in the Spen Valley. During the succeeding
decades, a number of publications appeared from local presses in Huddersfield and the
Spen Valley, the areas where the main part of the Luddite disturbances had taken place.8
Much of this interest was antiquarian in character, but there was also an attempt to use the
subject as a warning lesson to contemporaries against the folly of seeing violence against
property or persons as a means of solving the industrial problem. 9 Sympathy for the motives
of those who supported Luddism at a time of great economic distress was inevitably followed
by ultimate moral condemnation of what had been done. What was significant about this
in the present context was the extent to which public information was based on the published
reports which appeared after the trial of the Yorkshire Luddites at York in 1813. 10 These
were to form the basis of much that was afterwards written and published. Although they
contained the mass of local information that the public wanted, the material in them was
essentially a narrow base of evidence, selected and presented as an indictment of the crimes
of the Luddites, and attention was inevitably concentrated on the legal and moral issues
involved, at the expense of the wider historical perspective. It was as a result of this that
Wood’s dressing shop acquired its role as the symbol of the futility and the extremism into
which the Luddite movement degenerated. The murder of the Marsden millowner William

8 See for instance [Cowgill, J., ed.], An Historical Account of the Luddites (Huddersfield 1862), and The Luddites'.

Proceedings of the Special Assizes held at York (Heckmondwike 1870). The first edition of Frank Peel’s book arose from
a series of local newspaper articles, and his narrative underwent further serialisations as well as the two later expanded
editions of the book.

9 See for instance Cowgill’s introductory preface.

10 Report of Proceedings under Commissions of Oyer & Terminer and Gaol Delivery, for the County of York (n.d.); and
Proceedings under the Special Commission at York (Leeds 1813), which went through at least three editions in 1813 alone.
Cowgill’s book and the Heckmondwike publication were both reprintings from one of the above reports, and
Peel’s narrative also relied heavily on them.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

136

Horsfall by Woods stepson George Mellor, aided by two workmates and a man from
another dressing shop, was described at the trial as ‘the worst feature’ of the disturbances,
and the case against Horsfall s murderers was the first to be heard. A lasting impression was
also left by the impunity with which Mellor had converted Wood’s dressing shop into a
centre for conspiracy , where there was continual talk of violence and lawlessness, and by his
considerable success in organising the cover-up afterwards.

Wood s dressing shop therefore hangs over the peaceful scene in ‘The Old Cropping
Shop as a warning of things to come. But this is significant only if seen in terms of the gap
between the early nineteenth century and the time when ‘The Old Cropping Shop’ was
published. Luddism represented the brief but epic struggle of the hand workers to resist the
forces of the factory system and the machine, which in the course of a few decades had
altered the structure of the Huddersfield textile industry. By the mid- Victorian era, the
methods shown in the print and the small units like Wood’s dressing shop were largely a
thing of the past, and what was true of the finishing end of the industry was true of much
of the rest of it, with the exception at that time of weaving. The effects on local society had
been far-reaching. Wfiat was resented was not only the loss of status and employment
attached to unwanted skills, the disciplining of the workforce and the disappearance of the
traditional opportunities for the small man to set up independently in the cloth trade; but
the vanishing of the social and moral codes based on the domestic system. The results had
been foreseen but not prevented :

the domestic system is highly favourable to the cultivation of paternal, filial, and fraternal affections, the
springs of family happiness, and to the cultivation of good, moral, and civil habits, the sources of public
tranquillity; ... the factory system tends to the prevention of these affections and habits, and leads youth
sooner into the strongest temptations, by which they are in danger of being corrupted, even to their ruin . . .
as the Clothiers are a numerous body of men, and their trade and employment are their chief, frequently
their only birth-right and source of support, therefore, they ought to be protected and secured to them, as
the most sacred property.11

‘The Old Cropping Shop’ therefore idealises the virtues of a lost past as seen from a period
that had experienced the brutalities of the industrial revolution. It puts forward an implicit
plea for the betterment of conditions of life in the factory towns if the provocation of the
people into renewed industrial and social violence was to be avoided. It is interesting to
note the connection between the publisher and the Huddersfield radical Joshua Hobson,
who in the 1870s edited a newspaper published by Brown.12 To the historian it offers not
only a work of realism, but a record of how society saw itself and its past, produced under
the influence of what has been called the ‘struggle by academic art to come to terms with a
new, industrialized society in the Victorian period. The general failure of this experiment
in art is here represented by the fact that although ‘The Old Cropping Shop’ has remained
popular to the present day, its meanings were almost immediately lost, whilst the imagina-
tive treatment of Luddism has since been left to the writers of literary and dramatic fiction.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to th ank Mr. E. W. Aubrook, Curator, Tolson Memorial Museum, Huddersfield, and Mr. S. T.
Dibnah, Chief Librarian and Curator, for kindly providing access to research material in the collections of Kirklees
Libraries and Museums Service, and for supplying the photographs illustrating this note.

11 Extract from resolutions of a meeting at Honley near Huddersfield held on 28 May 1806, printed by Thomas
Smart, Huddersfield.

12 Chadwick, S., A Bold and Faithful Journalist (Huddersfield 1976), p. 69.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

137

SHORTER NOTES AND CONTRIBUTIONS

A DISCOID AL KNIFE FROM KEPWICK AND
NEOLITHIC FINDS FROM POCKLINGTON

By W. A. Mackay

This article has been, prepared to describe finds of flint and stone implements made
between 1973 an-d I977- Firstly, the discoidal knife from Kepwick was found in casual
circumstances whilst walking on the North Yorkshire Moors. Secondly, the implements
from the Pocklington area were found during examination of three areas around Pockling-
ton. This examination was originally for Romano-British material with Neolithic artefacts
only turning up later. Areas 1 and 2 were examined after autumn ploughing until the areas
were under seed. The occurrence of finds with time tended to be rather even, but it would
probably be correct to say that more implements were found in the late winter -early spring
period, when the soil had been open to the elements for some time. Since the summer of

1977, examination of all the areas has passed into the hands of Pocklington School
Archaeological Society.

Discoidal Knife from Kepwick (Fig. 1. No. 1)

Found in December I973> 111 a niole hill lying adjacent to the trackway known as *The
Cleveland Road’ at SE 490919. The implement is of mottled yellow flint and bifacially
ground. Length 53 mm, width 43 mm and thickness 12 mm. The writer also has in his
possession a small blade c.20 mm long and 10 mm wide from the same location.1

Neolithic Finds from Pocklington (Nos. 2-18)

Three areas, referred to as areas 1, 2 and 3, were examined.

Area 1 (SE 820492)

This lies on the western edge of the parish of Nunburnholme, consisting of a field at
present given over to arable farming.2 This field is roughly triangular in shape, being
bounded on the west (approximately) by the Nunburnholme/Pocklington parish boundary,
111 the form of an iron fence, on the north by the B.1246 Pocklington to Warter road and
on the south east by Cocoa Beck, after which the Yorkshire WBlds immediately rise. For
the most part, the soil of the field is clay. Implements were found in an area approximately
of rectangular shape, with measurements of 150 by 200 metres. Of the three areas this
produced the greatest quantity of implements, including two stone axe fragments, with the
majority being of the boulder clay flint stone, and with two only being of the local wold

flint. In all, t wenty-two flint implements, including fragments and 270 grams of flakes were
found.

These can be divided up according to type as follows:

7 horseshoe scrapers, the best of which are illustrated — Nos. 3, 7, 8, 9.

4 side-scrapers — Nos. 5 and 12
1 triangular scraper

1 core scraper

2 side-end scrapers — Nos. 4 and 11

and 7 fragmentary implements including No. io, which is probably a fragment of a double

1 Raymond Hayes tells me of finds of numerous flint implements along this stretch of the ‘road’ including at least

one other discoidal knife. &

2 This field was under pasture until 1970 when drainage pipes were installed and it was turned over to arable.

138

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

1 -KEPWICK; 2-18, POCKLINGTON .

A DISCOIDAL KNIFE FROM KEPWICK AND NEOLITHIC FINDS FROM POCKLINGTON

139

ended scraper, and No. 6 which is a retouched fragment.

The blade end of a broken stone axe (No. 2) and a chip both of Langdale type VI stone3
were found at this location in 1975.

Area 2 (SE 797496)

This area, out of the three examined, produced the first flint implements. It lies on the
eastern side of the Pocklington parish, between the former York to Market Weighton
tai way and the Pocklington to Full Sutton road. Since it was first examined, part of the

area has been built on. Here implements were discovered over an area of approximately
100 by 100 metres. 1

A smaller number of implements were found, probably because it was less thoroughly
investigated, and in all nine implements were found of which four were of wold flint.

By type these were:

4 horseshoe scrapers
2 side-scrapers
1 end scraper (No. 16)
and 2 oval scrapers (No. 14 and 15)

Area 3 (SE 796487)

This area, only examined briefly in the early summer of 1975, lies just outside the parish of
I ockhngton, upon the edge of the former airfield in the parish of Barmby Moor. From this
area there are two finds, made at the same time as the writer examined the field, not in his
possession that are worth mentioning. The first is a fine leaf shaped arrowhead and the
second half of a polished stone axe tentatively assigned as being of dolerite. Of the finds in
the writer s possession there are some flakes and two implements. The first is a small sickle4
(No 13)— which is 79 mm long, 31 mm at its widest point and 15 mm thick. This is of
mottled yellow flint and the blade has a pronounced curve. The second is a petit tranchet
arrowhead (No. 17). These finds were made over an area of about 40 by 40 metres.

AW 250 metres from this location, on the site of Pocklington School pavilion
(SE 79834868), a side-scraper in orange flint (No. 18) was found in 1975.

All the implements described above are in the possession of the writer unless stated
otherwise.

3 Identification by Dr. Pat Phillips of Sheffield University.

4 Identification by T. G. Manby.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

141

BRONZE AGE ROUND BARROWS AND
ADJACENT EARTHWORKS ON THE

HAMBLETON HILLS

By Raymond A. Varley

Summary On the western edge of the Hambleton Hills, in North Yorkshire, are a remarkable series of prehistoric
earthworks: the Casten Dike north and south, Cleave Dike, a promontory fort on Boltby Scar, Hesketh Dike, a
prehistoric track and many burial mounds. Nearly all the burial mounds were excavated during the last century:
some produced urns, beakers, flints and personal ornaments. John Sanders excavated one of these barrows in 1910
and recovered a large Collared Urn containing a cremation and bronze pins or studs.

INTRODUCTION

The Corallian limestone forms the impressive escarpment which extends the Hambleton
Hills to the north-west and forms the south-west corner of the North Yorkshire Moors.
The barrow is situated on Oldstead Moor, on the east side of the escarpment. The Casten
Dike south, which runs eastwards from Knowlson’s Drop at the edge of the escarpment, is
checked by the High Town Bank road, the barrow being on the other side of this road
and to the north (Fig. 2). Below Roulston Scar plateau, and just below the escarpment edge,
is the White Horse of Kilburn, a notable and famous landmark of the area. It is not pre-
historic, but was constructed in 1857.1

Fig. 2. The location of Sanders’ barrow and adjacent earthworks on the Hambleton Hills.

’ John Hodgson, the village schoolmaster from Kilburn, and his pupils marked out the White Horse from a

sketch made by Thomas Taylor, then a native of Kilburn. The original plan of the Horse is preserved in the
Yorkshire Museum.

143 THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

At the top of the escarpment is rough grassland, bracken, heath with outcrops of lime-
stone; the limestone has been worked in open quarries at intervals along the Hambleton
Hills and is worked considerably near Kepwick.2 The position on the western part of the
plateau which terminates into the magnificent escarpment, often developed as cliffs over
l°° 13° m0 high, commands extensive panoramic views overlooking the Vale of

Mowbray to the south-west and the Pennine Chain. The steep Sutton Bank road on the
west side severely descending westwards to Sutton-under- Whitestone Cliffe and runs along
the top of the Hambletons to Sproxton and Helmsley, eastwards. Another remarkable
feature of the topography of this area is the number of small narrow valleys and gorges
between the escarpment and the River Rye, which have been cut by streams flowing
southward from the moorlands farther north,3 with outcrops of springs.

The landscape provides sites for earthworks including dikes and burial mounds. Flint
collectors have always been attracted to these hills which are abundant in flints, particularly
arro wheads, suggesting that the high ground of the Hambletons were the hunting grounds

The impressive prehistoric earthworks, burial mounds and dikes on the edge of the
amb.etons (FiR 2) Fave attracted the attention of antiquarians during the last and present
centuries. A few barrows were excavated by pot-hunters without recording their work and
finds. Messrs Murray of Deleside Lodge and Verity of Southwoods, both on the Hambleton
Hi Is, excavated a large number of barrows in the immediate vicinity between 1861-4 but
barely left a record. Mr Johnson formerly of Hesketh Hall, also on the Hambletons
excavated a barrow in July 1864 which was re-excavated by H. Denny, then curator of
Leeds Museum and two others in August and September 1864. He records his investigations
and mentions Murray and Verity finds in the Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological and
Polytechnic Society, 1865. Canon William Greenwell6 also visited these hills in 1864 and
excavated a cairn and at least one round barrow which he records in his monumental work
British Barrows, 1877. These excavations were conducted by the prevailing standards of the
nineteenth-century. Excavations have been carried out in the present century a cist burial
was reported by E. Fawcett in 1938 and Mr. G. F. Willmot, late of the Yorkshire Museum,
exvavated the promontory fort and a small cairn in 1938. It seems that the boom in barrow
digging on the Hambleton Hills was at its height between 1863 -4, after which little excava-
tion seems to have been carried out until the turn of the present century. The publication to
modern standards of nineteenth-century collections is one of the most pressing needs of

0 1

3 Feet

Metres

Fig. 3. Section of barrow showing position of urn (after Sanders).

! iYlIson’ V., British Regional Geology, East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (1971), pp. 48-9.

Elgee, F., Aioorlands (1912), pp. 217-9.

collections!^ ^ ^ °f ^ Collectin§ has ProbablY Passed, many local farmers and land owners possess

® Elgee, F., Early Man in North-East Yorkshire (1930), pp. 32, 77.

Kinnes, I., ‘British barrows: a unique visual record?’, Antiquity, 51 (1977), pp. 52-4.

BRONZE AGE ROUND BARROWS AND ADJACENT EARTHWORKS ON THE HAMBLETON HILLS 1 43

archaeology in Yorkshire, coupled with the re-excavations and appraisal of many of the
barrows that were, in fact only partially excavated by Murray, Verity, Johnson, Denny,
Greenwell and their contemporaries.

THE EXCAVATION

The Bronze Age roimd barrow excavated by Sanders is situated at about 935 ft. (285 m)
O.D. (SE 522818) miles (12 km) east of Thirsk and 3 miles (4*8 km) south west of Cold
Kirby (Fig. 2). John Sanders, formerly schoolmaster of Cold Kirby, conducted an explora-
tory excavation of the round barrow in September 1910. He gave a lecture on his excavation
to members of the Darlington and Teesdale Naturalists Society, which was subsequently
reported in the Yorkshire Gazette ,7 he also made a brief note of his work,8 with a sketch
diagram of the section (Fig. 3) not to scale. The barrow was then 42 ft (12-8 m) in diameter

01 5 10 CMS.

0 1 2 3 4 tfcjQ

t- i Si ^1 Va

Fig. 4. Bronze Age collared urn. Scale 1:3.

7 Yorkshire Gazette, 24 September 1910, the sketch drawing, illustrated of the decorated collared urn is not to
scale.

8 1 would like to thank the late Mr. G. F. Willmot and Mr. T. G. Manby, Doncaster Museum, for bringing
Sanders notes to my attention.

144

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

and 5 ft 6 in. (i *7 m) high, Sanders dug into the barrow on the north side, downward into
the centre until he reached a large decorated collared urn. The mound was constructed of an
outer capping of gravelly soil 3 to 4 ft (0-9 to 1-2 m) thick, then 3 or 4 ft (0-9 to 1-2 m) of
selected soil and gravel (Fig 3), the urn being upright in the centre with a heap of stones
and clay packed round it. This was the primary burial which Sanders expected to find it
was broken m large fragments in the clay rubble. He intended to continue his excavation of

the barrow on the south side, but if he did, it was not reported and no notes have been
preserved.

Sanders method of excavation by a trench driven straight to the barrow centre, ignoring

the rest of the mound was typical of his times. But at least he left a reasonably full record of

his work with a sketch diagram, his finds have been preserved, and his notes9 are available
for re-appraisal.

The Urn and Contents

The large sherds of this Collared Urn (Fig. 4) have been reconstructed, it is 44 cm high,
33*5 cm diameter at the rim and 10 cm diameter at the base. The fabric is medium hard,’
butt to reddish brown with darker buff-brown and black patches. The interior is buff-
brown with darker brown patches carbonised towards the base, the core is black-brown.
The medium hard fabric is tempered with shale particles, crushed limestone and sandstone
grit, varying from 0-4 cm to 0-7 cm in diameter. Both interior and exterior surfaces are
smooth apart from occasional limestone particles which protrude through the surface.
Decoration on the collar is in the form of herringbone pattern of twisted cord bordered
below the rim and on the shoulder. The neck is decorated by vertical fingertip impressions.

The urn contained ashes, cremated human bones with the bones of a small animal which
has been split open and a number of bronze studs or the heads of bronze pins.

DISCUSSION

There appears to be a total lack of recognisable Food Vessels in a region known to have
had a Food Vessel using population in the Early Bronze Age.10 The same can be said for the
adjoining Ampleforth Moor11 to the south-east. What has been described as a debased
beaker12 recovered in 1938 from a cist at Sutton Bank road, is a Food Vessel type, possibly
with beaker association. The cist contained a crouched female inhumation accompanied
by the Food Vessel, a jet bead and two flint flakes. The vessel is 19-7 cm high, 16-5 cm rim
diameter and 9-6 cm diameter at the base. Decorated by irregular impressed horizontal and
vertical striations, and a row of horizontal finger-nail decoration on the neck and body. The
current dating of Food Vessels and Collared Urns etc., is based on the dates suggested by the
Bnstlecone Pine calibration for Unetice/ Wessex Culture/Irish: British Early Bronze Age of
c.2100-1700 B.C. instead of the old short British Early Bronze Age of 1600-1400 B.C.
This means starting our Middle Bronze Age at 1700 instead of 1400, so that it has been
stretched to cover the extra three centuries. Nevertheless the Food Vessel from the cist
appears to be still in the new Early Bronze Age,13 this may be an indication of a parallel
community with differing cultural traditions. Only one Accessory cup is recorded as being
found it comes from a barrow on Whitestone Cliff where the finds include between forty
and fifty flint flakes, an urn 30-5 cm high which contained cremated human bones with

The finds from Sanders’ excavation are at present housed in the late T. Lord’s private collection Settle For
permission to publish these finds I am indebted to the late T. Lord. The late Mr. G. F. Willmot had Sander’s file

°fieoXAnT10n n°AteS™ all h°?e,d that his archive wil1 eventually be placed in the Yorkshire Museum.

!i ApSimon A. M., ‘Food Vessels’, Bull. I. Inst, of Arch. London (1958), pp. 24-6

MoTyo VA’ft 'The EXCaVlti°n °f 3 &OUP °f R°Und B“rOWS °n Ampkforth

pp1242ai-2eFigE5 <Rep°rt °n a Br°nZe Age Burial at Sutton Bank» Near Thirsk, Yorkshire’, Y.A.J., 31 (1938),
Burgess, C. B., The Bronze Age’, Current Archaeology, 2 (1970), pp. 208-9.

BRONZE AGE ROUND BARROWS AND ADJACENT EARTHWORKS ON THE HAMBLETON HILLS 145

several fragments of a smaller urn14 which represents the Accessory Cup.

The numbers and distribution of the Urns whether Overhanging rims or Collared Urns
are well represented, but suffered from extensive and unrecorded barrow-digging by local
people and Victorian gentlemen.15 A considerable amount of these urns have since been
lost. The only urns that have survived from all the many burial mounds excavated on the
western edge of the Hambleton Hills, to the writer’s knowledge is an urn from Boltby Fort,
one urn excavated by Sanders and two urns excavated by Greenwell. Apart from the
Primary urn excavated by Greenwell, the three remaining urns retaining as they do the use
of whipped cord belong to Longworths Secondary Urn Series.16 The Boltby urn is 40-5 cm
high, 26*6 cm diameter at the rim and 10*4 cm base diameter. The collar is decorated by
twisted cord filled triangles enclosed above and below by two twisted card lines, on the
internal bevel of the rim are two twisted cord lines. Green well’s secondary urn is 31-2 cm
high, 24-9 cm rim diameter and 10 *6 cm diameter at the base. The decoration on the collar
is of twisted cord filled triangles enclosed above and below by two twisted cord lines. On
the neck is twisted double zig-zag, a row of horizontal whipped cord maggots on the
shoulder and a single twisted cord line on the internal rim bevel. The Primary urn is
40-7 cm high, 32-1 cm diameter at the rim and n*6 cm base diameter. Decoration on the
collar is of twisted cord hurdle pattern enclosed above and below by two twisted cord lines.
On the neck are vertical rows of jabs and on the internal bevel of the rim are two twisted
cord lines. This urn belongs to Long worth’s Primary Series of Collared Urns.17 He demons-
trated that certain traits which include whipped and twisted cord, decoration found on the
Primary Series, had their ancestry in the Later Neolithic ceramic traditions of the Peter-
borough Culture.18 Jabbed or pits decoration is also typical of the Peterborough tradition
which can be seen in vessels like Welburn19 and Ogden,20 which carry multiple pitting in
their necks, and in vessels like Hungry Bentley21 and Stanton Moor22 which carry a row of
jabbed decoration around the shoulder. Greenwell’s primary urn belongs to the end of the
Primary Series, the secondary urn and the Boltby urn with the urn from Sanders’ barrow
(Fig. 4), to the beginning of the Secondary Series. Therefore these urns are unlikely to be
far removed in date from each other retaining the use of whipped cord and their date
expressed in unconverted C14 years is likely to fall within the bracket 1500-1200 B.C., as
suggested by Longworth.

14 Denny, H., ‘Notice of Early British Tumuli on the Hambleton Hills, near Thirsk’, Proc. Yorks. Geol. & Poly.
Soc., IV (1865), p. 500.

15 Spratt, D. A., and Simmons, I. G., ‘Prehistoric Activity and Environment on the North York Moors \ Journal
of Archaeological Science (1976), 3, pp. 201-3.

16 Longworth, I. H., in Pacitto, A. L., ‘The Excavation of two Bronze Age Burial Mounds at Ferry Fryston in
the West Riding of Yorkshire’, Y.A.J., 42 (1969), p. 301.

17 Longworth, I. H., ‘The Origins and Development of the Primary Series in the Collared Urn Tradition in
England and Wales’, P.P.S., 27 (1961), p. 300.

18 Ibid., pp. 264-73.

19 Manby, T. G., ‘A Cinerary Urn from Welburn N.R.’, Y.A.J., 39 (1958), pp. 395-6.

20 Varley, R. A., ‘A Collared Urn from Ogden, W. R.’, Y.A.J., 42 (1968), pp. 126-7, Fig- i-

21 Abercromby, J., A Study of the Bronze Age Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland and its Associated Grave-Goods, II
'1912), Fig. 85.

22 Hayes, R. H., in McDonnell, J. (Ed.), A History of Helmsley, Rievaulx and District (1963), p. 383.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

147

A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY BRONZE SKILLET
FROM NEAR PATELEY BRIDGE

ByJ. A. Giles

Tolson Memorial Museum, Huddersfield

Discovery

Very little is known about the discovery or subsequent history of this bronze skillet, other
than that it is believed to have been found by a workman, on the presumed site of a Foun-
tains Abbey grange, on Cold Stones (SE 124641), Greenhow Hill, 4*3 km west-south-west
of Patel ey Bridge, earlier this century. It then passed to the owner of a small museum at
Castle Steads, Pateley Bridge, from whom Dr. A. Raistrick and the late Messers A. Green
and J. F. N. Dufty, acquired it, about 1926, for the Craven Museum, Skipton,1 though there
is no record of this donation, or of the discovery of a bronze skillet in that region, in the
museum’s early accession registers.2

Description

The body of this three-legged bronze skillet (Fig. 5), though slightly flattened at the
bottom, is more globular than ovoid, and there are two horizontal ribs around the middle.
The rim is gently flared, 2-8 cm wide, with an external diameter of 15-4 cm. An almost
rectangular sectioned, parallel-sided, strip-handle, of which only a short section 4*2 cm long
remains, projects from just below the top of the rim ; at its junction with the rim it is
supported from beneath by a body attached, oval-sectioned, curved strut, which is markedly
thinner at the top and just above the base than the middle which, in the same axial plane as
the handle, is almost oval. The handle curves upwards to the level of the rim and would
probably have been about 15 cm long. Its upper surface is decorated with a simple Pincised,
or more probably cast, roundel, and presumably there had been a series of these along the
whole of its length.

Only one leg, of rectangular section, with an external median rib and splayed foot,
survives; the position of a second is indicated by a short stump, but the third has been torn
off leaving a large, irregularly-shaped, hole in the lower part of the body of the vessel.
Around the middle of the body, at right angles to the handle, and especially well preserved
on the underside of the bowl, are traces of a casting seam which, in places, has been reduced
to a low convex ridge by cross, and oblique, filing with an exceptionally coarse tool ; there
is no evidence, however, of the seam above the middle, or on the inside, of the body.

The skillet has an all-over, thin, pale to dark, often shiny, green patina, which on parts of
the body, rim and handle, is stained reddish-brown with iron compounds.

Skillet Forms and Dating

There are two types of cast bronze skillet, both of which appear to have been in use at
the same time in the Middle Ages. Type 1 : vessels, the bowls of which resemble that of a
modern shallow frying pan, with almost vertical or slightly outward sloping sides, flat or
gently sagging, but not round, bases, provided with three, usually short, D-sectioned legs
with external medial ribs and rounded feet, and projecting straight or slightly curved strip
handles which, at their junction with the wall of the pan, are invariably supported by a body

1 I am grateful to Dr. Arthur Raistrick for this information.

2 I would like to thank Mr. D. J. Williams, of the Craven Museum, Skipton, for checking these registers for me.

148

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Fig. 5. A medieval skillet from near Pateley Bridge

A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY BRONZE SKILLET FROM NEAR PATELEY BRIDGE

149

attached curved strut.3 Type 2: globular bodied vessels with gently flared rims, legs are
longer — size for size — than on the previous type and are usually splayed at the bottom;4
though rounded and flat feet,5 like those on Type 1, are present on a small number of skillets ;
handles are of curved, rather than straight, strip type, and are in the main shorter than those
on Type 1, but are similarly attached and supported. Decoration of both forms, when
present, is confined to the upper surface of the handle. The commonest type of ornament
found on Type 1 skillets is a simple geometric pattern cast in low relief of zig-zags, lozenges
and pellets separated by oblique parallel lines,6 whilst on Type 2, it is almost exclusively
shallow cast spaced roundels;7 between two and four, thin, circumferential ribs often occupy
the space between the base of the neck and the widest part of the bowl of the latter type, but
rarely exceed two on the former.

The dating of either type of skillet is a problem, for very few fragments, and even fewer
complete examples, have been found in sealed and precisely dateable archaeological con-
texts. According to manuscript illustrations, Type 2 skillets, of which the Greenhow vessel
is a fine example, were certainly in use in the thirteenth century.8 Our earliest skillet,
possibly dating to about the middle of the fourteenth century, is that from King William
Street, London, which is very similar in form and detail to that from Greenhow, though the
legs are a little shorter, more pointed and possess flat, and not splayed, feet; the handle too
is not totally in keeping with this particular type of cooking utensil, for though it is per-
fectly straight, it is rather more upwardly inclined than usual.9 A more precisely dated
vessel of the same form, with decoration on the handle of spaced roundels and four thin,
narrowly spaced, ribs around the upper half of the bowl, came from the cellar of a house in
Pottergate, Norwich, that was filled with debris from a fire of 25 April 1507, and subse-
quently sealed with a layer of clay before rebuilding;10 thus 1507 is the terminal date, which
puts the vessel in the late fifteenth or just possibly in the early sixteenth century. Though the
Pottergate skillet is considerably smaller (being only 15 cm high), and is furnished with
tapered legs and flat feet, it is identical in every other respect to that from Greenhow. The
latter is not, has as been noted above, however, of identical shape to the fourteenth-century
vessel from King William Street, and it is therefore most unlikely that it dates from that
time. The closest parallel, that from Pottergate, is reliably dated, so a date lying somewhere
between the late fourteenth and the end of the fifteenth century would seem appropriate
for the Greenhow skillet.

Though I am not primarily concerned with Type 1 skillets here, it is worth observing
that there are even fewer contemporary illustrations of this particular form than of Type 2
vessels, and in consequence they are even harder to date. There are in existence a number
of fme examples, a notable one being that from Stanford-in- the- Vale, Berkshire.11 To the
list we can add that from Maldon, Essex,12 and one from Bakewell, Derbyshire;13 the handle

3 Dunning, G. C., ‘The Bronze Skillet from Stanford-in-the-Vale, Berkshire’, Berks. Archaeol. J., 60 (1962).
pp. 98-100, fig. 1, pi. 1.

4 A two-pronged foot occurred in a c.1346-50 context at the Manor of the More, Rickmansworth, see Biddle, M.,
Barfield, L., and Millard, A., ‘The Excavation of the Manor of the More, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire’'
Archaeol. J., 116 (1959), P- 184, fig- I9-I9 ; a number of fourteenth and fifteenth-century bronze ewers and cauldrons
possess similar legs and feet, see ewers from Battersea and London, in London Museum Medieval Catalogue (hereafter
referred to as L.M.M.C.) (1940), p. 200, no. A.4587, pi. LI, and p. 201, no. A.2752, pi. LII; York, Quenell, M.,
and C. H. M., A History of Everyday Things inEngland, 1066-1499 (London, 1950-51), p. 148, fig. 89, and the cauldron

from Blackfriars, L.M.M.C., p. 207, no. A.27445, pi. LVI.

6 As on the fourteenth-century skillet from King William Street, London, L.M.M.C., p. 207, no. A. 22649,
pi. LV, and the c.1500 example from Pottergate, Norwich, in ‘Norwich’, Current Archaeol., 5 (1975), p. 13 and
pi. on p. 15.

6 As on the vessel from Stanford-in-the-Vale, Dunning, op. cit., in note 3, fig. 1.

7 As on the Greenhow vessel, and that from Pottergate, ‘Norwich’, op. cit., in note 5.

8 L.M.M.C., pp. 205 and 207, fig. 68.4.

9 Ibid., p. 207, no. A. 22649, P- LV.

10 ‘Norwich’, op. cit., in note 5 above, pp. 11-13.

11 Dunning, op. cit., in note 3 above, pp. 98-100.

12 British Museum, Acc. no. 1957, 4-6, 2; I am grateful to John Cherry for supplying details on this vessel.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

of the latter is inscribed, JOHN athers, presumably the maker’s, or more probably, owner’s
name. All three specimens are of approximately the same shape and size, and dates ranging
rom late fourteenth century for the former and mid-fifteenth century for the latter two have
been suggested. Ceramic, as well as metal skillets were certainly in use in the late thirteenth
century as the much fragmented Type I example from the pottery production site at
Upper Heaton, West Yorkshire,” attests. Earthenware skillets were without question
cheaper versions of the metal forms, bronze cooking vessels being so much more expensive
and consequently only within the reach of wealthier households.

c . . , , . ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

andPtoCD T Wmkmfwho E4155 JE 11arding.’ °f tke Craven Museum, Skipton, for permission to publish the skillet
S? * • ' a y i ’ ,ho furi^shed me with information relating to its discovery. I am extremely erateful to the
following individuals who kindly permitted me to examine records and vessels in their care- T Cherrv Rrit-id-i
Museum; M. Darnells, York Archaeological Trust; M. J. Dolby, Museum and Art ^GaUery,' boncasS- G C

Wales and D°r Ankdstrick', Limom * Ha"’ Yorhhi" MuSeUm' Y°rk; J' R' Lewis’ NMional Mus'eum of

ve^0^ MUSCUm’ Y°rk; 1 WOuM like t0 thank Mrs’ E’ Hardey and Mr. P. Hall, for their comments on this

ol 9C60AepdpS“5,’fig.,iI7anby' T' G" 'MedleVal P0“ery KilnS “ Upper Heat°“’ West Y°rk-

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 51, 1979

151

A NOTARY’S GRAVE COVER FROM HOOTON
PAGNELL, SOUTH YORKSHIRE

By Peter F. Ryder

All Saints’ Church, Hooton Pagnell, was visited in December 1976 in the course of a
survey of medieval sepulchral monuments in South Yorkshire undertaken by the South
Yorkshire County Archaeological Unit. Two incised cross-slab grave covers were noted
built into the rear of the sedilia on the south side of the chancel, probably having been
inserted in this position when the church was restored in the nineteenth century.

The lower slab has an early thirteenth-century cross of a fairly conventional type with a
sword on its right. The upper slab (Fig. 6) has a simple cross patee head within a circle, rising
from a stepped calvary base. On the left of the shaft is a rectangular emblem, apparently
representing an open book. Beneath this, and only apparent on a close inspection because
of its position behind the central pillar of the sedilia, is a second emblem, which appears to
be a penner (a medieval pen case) and inkhorn (Fig. 7).

This is the only case of this emblem occurring in over 300 medieval grave covers so far
recorded in South Yorkshire. The emblem does occur again on a slab at Riccall, North
Yorkshire1 and on a brass commemorating Richard Foxwist, a notary, at Llanbeblig
Church, Caernarvon, Gwynedd.2 In a note on the latter the penner and inkhorn are said
to be the usual emblems of the notary.

On the Riccall slab the penner and inkhorn occur alongside a foliated cross of early
thirteenth-century type. The Llanbeblig brass bears an inscription dating it to 1500. The

Notary’s Grave Cover, Hooton Pagnell

0 0-5m

0 1 2 ft

> — *== • -*

Fig. 6. A grave cover from Hooton Pagnell.

1 C. C. Hodges, ‘On some medieval grave covers of exceptional or unusual character in the county of York’
Y.A.J., 20 (1909), pp. 220-24.

2 Franks, note in ‘Proceedings at meetings of the Archaeological Institute’, Arch. J., 6 (1849), p. 414.

the YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

cross head on the Hooton Pagnell slab is comparable with examples published by Butler3
which he dates to the early twelfth century.

The occurrence of the penner and inkhom emblem on an early twelfth-century slab at
Hooton Pagnell and on a brass in North Wales four centuries later in date exemplifies the
continuity in use of a relatively obscure emblem, both over a long period of time and in
geographically widely separate localities.

,The writer would be pleased to hear of other examples of the use of the penner and
inkhorn emblem on medieval grave covers.

The Penner and Inkhorn

Riccal

Fig. 7. Penners and inkhorns from medieval monuments.

Llanbeblig

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1 would like to thank Mrs. S. Knight for her assistance in my researches in this field.

3 L. A. S. Butler, Minor Medieval Monumental Sculpture in the East Midlands’, Arch.J., 121 (1964), pp. 1 11-53

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

153

A NOTE ON THE HIDDEN MISERICORD

OF SWINE

By R. Williamson

In the preface to his book, A Catalogue of Misericords in Great Britain (O.U.P., 1969),
G. L. Remnant explains that he took up the challenge accepted by Bertram Plummer implied
in a sentence by Francis Bond. Bond stated, ‘A vast number of misericords remains,
especially in collegiate and monastic churches. . . . But it is impossible to catalogue all the
misericords in the parish churches . . Z.1 After at first collaborating with Plummer and
supplying him with data and photographs of misericords, Remnant, after Plummer’s death
in 1961, set out to complete the unfinished work. The catalogue he produced, published in
1969, is a monumental piece of work, an invaluable tool for all who wish to study British
misericords. Remnant concedes however that It would be rash to state categorically that
we have recorded every misericord in England, Scotland and Wales’ (Preface), and he
mentions that unrecorded examples came to light after he had thought his work complete.

Fig. 8. A misericord at Swine. ( Photograph R. Williamson )

One misericord he does not list is to be found in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in
the village of Swine near Hull. Remnant lists only eight misericords as to be found in this
lovely church of which a former vicar wrote, ‘In grace and beauty and grandeur of con-
ception, few of the Parish Churches in England can equal the Church of St. Mary’s, Swine’.2 3

1 F. Bond, Misericords (Oxford 1910), p. 224.

2 J- M. Raimes, A Short History of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Swine (undated).

3 ibid.

154

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

The former vicar also states, ‘There are eight of the sixteen canons’ seats in the choir, and
their quaint figures are well worth looking at’.3 That is certainly true. But the diligent
searcher after misericords can in fact discover, and with some athletic ingenuity inspect, an
additional misericord (Fig. 8). It is to be found in a most unusual and undignified position,
fixed to the underside of the pulpit seat, fortunately with the carving undamaged. With the
aid of a torch and a mirror the carving can be seen and studied. Emma Phipson, in her
Choir Stalls and Their Carvings (Batsford, 1896), lists the eight misericords in the choir stalls
which are also listed by Remnant, but she adds a note,4 ‘One seat is nailed down at the back
of the pulpit, too low for inspection’. In fact it is possible to obtain a satisfactory photograph
of the misericord carving.5 As with the other misericords there are no supporters6 to have
suffered damage in the re-shaping of the seat when it was fitted into its new position. Like
most of the other Swine misericords too the subject of the carving is a face, in this case a
grotesque.

The head is crowned with curly hair and the face is bearded, the hair in both cases being
depicted as long strands ending in curls. Two indentations are shown in the brow. The nose
is a normal, human one. The ears are non-human, animal ears, probably cat’s. The pupils
of the almond-shaped eyes are carved out, but are not deeply drilled as in some grotesques,
The upper row of teeth are shown and between them and the lower lip protrudes a long,
narrow tongue which extends nearly as far as the tip of the beard. The upper lip of the
mouth is extremely thick. The whole appearance of the face is crude and menacing, though
not to the extent that is characteristic of some of the grotesque faces illustrated and discussed
by Ronald Sheridan and Anne Ross in their book Grotesques and Gargoyles (David and
Charles, Newton Abbot, 1975). 7 Some of the suggestions made by Sheridan and Ross
about the pre-Christian significance of the grotesque art that found its way into the medieval
church probably, however, apply to the Swine grotesque underneath the pulpit seat, as also
to the other grotesque faces carved on misericords.

Remnant suggests a date for the Swine misericords of c.1500 A.D.,8 and he notes that
J. E. Morris proposes a date of 1531, the same date as the old screen in the church.9

The ninth Swine misericord is one of an extremely interesting set10 and sheds a little
further light on, or poses further questions about, the significance of pagan motifs employed
by carvers in medieval Christian churches. One asks again, on seeing the grotesque face
under the pulpit seat, as well as the other misericords of Swine (especially the first on the
North side from the West, but also the third from the West on that side, and the second
on the South side from the West), the question asked by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in 1125, 11
‘What mean those ridiculous monstrosities in the courts of cloisters ; those filthy apes, those
fierce lions, those monstrous centaurs, those half-men, those spotted tigers, those fighting
soldiers and horn-blowing hunters; many bodies under one head, or many heads on one
body; here a serpent’s tail attached to a quadruped, there a quadruped’s head on a fish; here
a beast presenting the foreparts of a horse, and dragging after it the rear of a goat; there a
horned animal with the hind parts of a horse?’. But the answer to that fascinating question

4 P. 78. See also note at foot of p. 353 in N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire: York and the East Riding

6 See Fig. 8.

6 Bond, op. cit., p. 212, notes that Swine’s misericords belong to a group which, probably ‘for reasons of economy’,
possesses a ‘simple plan of seat’. He also notes, ibid., p. 213, that Swine is one of a few churches in which there are
misericords from which supporters are omitted altogether.

7 On the subject of the grotesque in ecclesiastical art see T. T. Wildridge, The Grotesque in Church Art (London,
1899).

8 op. cit., p. 185.

9 See the works byj. E. Morris and G. Poulson referred to by Remnant, op. cit., p. 185.

10 See Phipson, op. cit., pp. 78ff., and Plates 65 and 66.

11 Sancti Bernardi Opera (Rome, 1963), III, Apologia ad Guillelmum Abdatetn, pp. 81-108, esp. p. 106, 11, 14-25
English translation inj. C. Morrison, The Life and Times of St. Bernard (London, 1894), P- 132.

A NOTE ON THE HIDDEN MISERICORD OF SWINE

155

has already been fully pursued elsewhere.12

It is to be hoped that the ecclesiastical authorities will agree to a request that the hidden
pulpit misericord carving should be removed from its present relatively inaccessible position
and placed somewhere in the church more suitable for inspection and study.

12 In addition to the literature already referred to see, e.g. E. P. Evans, Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Art (1896) ;
F. Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought (London, 1971) ; M. D. Anderson, Animal Carvings in British Churches
(Oxford, 1938); G. C. Druce, ‘Medieval Bestiaries and their influence on ecclesiastical decorative an’, Journal of the
British Archaeological Association, n.s. 25 (1919), pp. 41-82, and 26 (1920), pp. 35-795 ‘Some abnormal and composite
Human Forms in English Architecture’, Arch. Journal, 2nd ser. 22 (1915). PP- 135-86, and other articles by the same
author.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

157

A NOTE ON DENTON HALL, WHARFEDALE

By May F. Pickles

The existence of very many early maps in Yorkshire has been established by the work of
Heather Lawrence.2 Such maps can be used for many purposes but not generally for archi-
tectural details since such details tend to be either fanciful or formalized. A Denton estate
map, however, is in a form which suggests an attempt at verisimilitude.3 The map dated
1716 shows an elevated representation of Denton Hall and church as at that date (Fig. 9).
The house, on two floors built around a central quadrangle, looks like a large manor house
built in sixteenth-century style. The present house designed by John Carr c. 1770 seems to be
on the same site. The church, shown on the map and known to have been used for the last
time in 17724 is depicted as a two cell building with two lancet windows visible in the
south wall of the nave and four in the chancel. The position of the present church seems to
be some considerable distance to the west of that shown on the Denton map.

Fig. 9. Denton Hall and church: details
from map of 1716.

Note: on the map, which is elaborately
coloured, these buildings are painted grey
to show that they were built of stone.

Scale about 8:1.

1 I am indebted to Helen Pickles who made the original drawings of house and church from the eighteenth-
century estate map and to Ann Alexander who checked and meticulously prepared the drawings for printing.

2 H. Lawrence, A catalogue of large scale maps of West Yorkshire to 1850, forthcoming.

158

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

A household inventory dated 1596 which should relate to the house on the Denton map
throws some light on the domestic arrangements enjoyed by the seignorial class in the
post-mediev al period.0 Out of some 20 rooms mentioned in the inventory 16 were used for
sleeping, for they contained beds and bedding in a variety of styles. Even in great’ houses a
substantial proportion of the occupants still slept in rooms at ground floor level.

This was not of course the first manor house at Denton. Reference to its predecessor
occurs in a proof of age dated 1353.* * 6 Although such documents are thought to be merely
formal, yet again this example has topographical detail which suggests otherwise. Robert
del Scales, one of ten witnesses to the document, declared that on the day the said Mauger
de Vavasour was born he came to Denton ‘and was helping Thomas, the said Mauger’s
father, to catch fish in his stew there’. The ‘stew’ can be identified as the deep irregular
depression cut into the ground on the north side of the present road from Denton to
Askwith. Recent field walking in the vicinity of the ‘stew’ produced pottery sherds of a
twelfth and thirteenth-century date.

Thus by putting together these several sources of evidence it is possible to trace a succes-
sion of manor houses constructed on the same site at Denton and to identify the immediate
predecessor of the present house as a Tudor mansion in traditional style.

by auction in 1975 ; “ accurate copy wil1 shortly be

• at Leeds City arcIuves' Sheepscar' Leeds-

6 Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and other analogous documents 10 (1921), p. 120.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 51, 1979

159

TREE RING DATING OF TWO GEORGIAN
HALLS NEAR DONCASTER

By Ruth A. Morgan

In October 1976 thin cross-sections were sawn from protruding oak roof beams at
Cusworth Hall and Hickleton Hall. The centre block of Cusworth Hall, from which the
samples were taken, was designed by George Platt of Rotherham and constructed in about
1740-41. The architect and exact date of Hickleton Hall are unknown, but Pevsner gives a
building date of c.1730,1 presumably based upon architectural features rather than any
documentary source. The growth pattern to be found in the annual rings of the timbers was
thus expected to span the seventeenth century, a period which has proved difficult for the
establishment of a reference tree-ring curve linking medieval with modern. This was a
period when conifers came into general use, and living trees rarely reach back before 1700.
So the aims were both to contribute to reference data and to determine accurate felling dates
for the timbers used in the roofs, particularly of Hickleton Hall.

Three beams from the Cusworth Hall roof had 60-63 growth rings, including some or all
of their sap wood. They had been hewn from young trees perhaps 20 cm in diameter, pre-
sumably growing on the estate. Two sections from Hickleton Hall included one from the
roof, a quartered trunk with 79 rings including all its sapwood, and one collected in May
1977 from the servants’ quarters, a much more massive beam of 34 by 29 cm with 72 rings
including 14 of sapwood.

The plotted ring-width curves for each timber were compared with each other, and with
dated reference curves based on living trees overlapped with historical material. It was
found that the patterns for the Cusworth timbers matched with a reference curve for the
Winchester area,2 giving a computer result of t=5*92 (a value over 3-5 indicates a highly
significant match). Since all the sapwood was preserved on one of the timbers, and the
outermost ring below the bark was completely formed, it was possible to determine that the
trees were felled in the winter of 1740-41.

The Hickleton roof beam retained all its sapwood zone but only the spring vessels of the
outermost ring had been formed, indicating summer felling. The growth curve matched
with the same reference curve, ending in 1744 (t— 4-01). This would suggest that the roof
of Hickleton Hall dated to 1744 or soon after, rather later than expected, unless this beam
proved to be a later insertion. The curve spans the period 1666 to 1744; its date was further
confirmed and in turn helped to confirm the date of mill timbers from Bradbourne in
Derbyshire (note forthcoming in Derbyshire Arch. Jour.) to between 1650 and 1836.

The curve for the beam from the servants’ quarters matches best in 1747-48 though the
dating is not as certain.

Figure 10 shows two of the roof beam curves in synchronous position with the Win-
chester area reference curve.

The tree-ring examination of the roof beams has thus enabled us to date the felling of the
trees for Cusworth Hall to 1740-41, the roof thus being put on in 1741 or later, and for
Hickleton Hall to the summer of 1744. The quality of the timber suggests that it was grown
locally and felled as and when required, even in summer. It is of interest that the patterns
correspond so well with those for southern England; they have also contributed greatly to

1 Pevsner, N. and Radcliffe, E., The Buildings of England: Yorkshire West Riding (Penguin, 1967), pp. 263-4.

2 Barefoot, A. C., ‘A Winchester dendrochronology for 1635 to 1972 A.D.; its validity and possible extension’.
Journal of the Institute of Wood Science, 7 (1975), pp. 25-32.

i6o

1720

TREE RING DATING OF TWO GEORGIAN HALLS NEAR DONCASTER

161

our knowledge of the tree growth pattern between 1665 and 1744 in the area which may
lead to further dating. It is hoped that further examples of Georgian architecture in this
region can be examined and perhaps dated in this way in the future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The writer is very grateful to Malcolm Dolby and Paul Buckland of Doncaster Museum for their help in sampling
and interpreting the results.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , Vol. 51, 1979

163

ARCHIVAL NOTES: The Bradfer-Lawrence Collection1

By R. W. Hoyle

Many will remember the late H. L. Bradfer-Lawrence as a member of the Society and of
its council until his death in 1965. Bradfer-Lawrence built up an important collection of
archives and through the kindness of his son and daughter, Lt Col P. L. Bradfer-Lawrence
and Mrs. B. E. Grey, the Yorkshire portion of his collection was presented to the Society in
1972. 2 The present writer and others have worked on the collection and while it will be
sometime before a catalogue is produced, it is now possible to give a preliminary guide to
its contents.

The largest single group in the collection is the archive of the Lister family, Barons
Ribblesdale, of Gisburn. Unfortunately there is no modern account of this family.3 By the
formation of a large estate in Yorkshire and Lancashire in the later seventeenth and eight-
eenth century and the development of political interests in Clitheroe (where successive
members of the family sat as members of Parliament) the Listers became one of the few
substantial families in north-west Yorkshire. Thomas Lister (1756-1826) was ennobled as
Baron Ribblesdale in 1797. Despite their long service in both houses of Parliament no
member of the family achieved high political office and there is little of national importance
in the collection. The title became extinct with the death of the fourth baron in October
1925. In Yorkshire the main family estates were around Gisburn and in Gisburn itself,
Paythorne, Rimmington and Swinden. In Lancashire the family had interests in Twiston
(3 miles south of Gisburn), Oldham and Clitheroe. The first baron had extensive interests in
Malham which he extended by purchase in 1785. The estate probably reached its maximum
size in his lifetime. Important sales took place in 1852 (of Malham) and 1867.

The Ribblesdale archive is an excellent family and estate collection. It includes a few
papers from the archive of the Lambert family of Calton, near Malham.4 The older part of
the archive was inspected by Mrs. E. B. Tempest in 1904. Her detailed calendar survives with
the collection and is available for inspection. Mrs. Tempest saw most of the deeds predating
1700. These she arranged in six series, each identified by a capital letter and organised in 45
bundles. Bundles 1-7 (213 items) consists of deeds for Gisburn dated between 1242/3 (a
confirmation from Henry III to Salley Abbey of the manor of Gisburn) and 1713- Bundles
8-15 are title deeds to land purchased by the Lister family in the later eighteenth century.
Bundle 16 (25 items) is a small group of documents relating to the Lister family, including
Inquisitions post Mortem, grants out of the Court of Wards and later probates. Bundles 25-27
consist of 175 deeds to land in Malhamdale dated between the twelfth and eighteenth
centuries. Known as the Calton deeds, these bundles are now in the possession of Charles-
worth, Wood and Brown, solicitors, of Skipton. They were inspected by the NR A West
Riding (North) Committee in 1965, having previously been used extensively by J. W.
Morkill in his history of Kirkby Malhamdale. The Society does have those Calton deeds
discovered by Mr. Tempest too late to be inserted into the main sequence (1 bundle of 32

1 Yorkshire Archaeological Society MD 335. Iam indebted to David Michelmore and Sylvia Thomas, successive
archivists to the society, for their support for my work on Bradfer-Lawrence. Maisie Morton and Margaret Potts
have given their usual aid during the writing of this note. As the only internal references within the collection are
temporary, none is given here by they are available on application at Claremont.

2 A further part is in the Norfolk and Norwich R.O. and a small portion was sold.

3 But see the pedigree in Whitaker, History of Craven (3rd Ed., 1879), opp. p. 55; Memorials of an Ancient House
[Lister], H. L. Lyster Denny, (Edinburgh 1913) and standard peerages.

4 Little archive material is known to survive for Malham but see below. The majority of it probably passed to
James Morrison by the purchase of 1852. His son Walter had a large collection of (mostly) post-medieval deeds used
by Morkill and called the Malham Tarn deeds. These must have come from Gisburn. Their present location is
unknown, but a few were printed in Yorkshire Deeds 1 (YASRS 39) and the Yorkshire Arch. Society has typescript
abstracts of the whole (Ms 73 id).

4 THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

items, c. 1243-1595). Bundle 28 consists of 40 deeds for Skipton dated 1349-1619. Bundle 29
comprises 29 deeds for land in Swmden (Gisburn parish) 1542-1785 and bundle 30 contains
48 items for Twiston (Lancs) 1491-1785. Further Lancashire material is in bundles 31-34
(91 deeds to land in Oldham 1552-1794) and 42 (papers in property in Oldham 1760-77).
Eleven seventeenth century items for Horton in Craven survive in bundle 35. Bundles 35-37
are a miscellanea, containing mainly deeds 1297-1799 for numerous townships in Craven
V25 !s a lay subsidy of Ewcross and Staincliffe of 5 Elizabeth.5 Two bundles (37-38) of

Fta ordshire deeds are missing as well as two bundles of papers relating to the Yorkshire
Light Dragoons, 1779-83.

Mrs. Tempest did not see all the pre-1700 items in the collection. There are a large
number of documents of early modern date for the Gisburn estate which remain un-
calendared. The majority of deeds to land bought by Thomas Lister, especially in Paythorne
remain unexamined. A large number of these deeds go back into the early seventeenth
century. In a few cases Mrs. Tempest also missed medieval material. Especially important
are a number of grants to Salley, in particular two of 1148 from William de Percy forming
the original landed endowment of the abbey, the quitclaim of the abbey site of c. 1250-60, aS
e ofc. 1250-60, anrants to Salley, in particular two of 1148 from William de Percy forming
early copy of the confirmation from Pope Alexander III in 11726 and a royal confirmation
ot the manor of Gisburn of 1261. As a curiosity the collection also contains two forged
medieval charters identified by Whitaker and further discussed by J. H. Round and I. W.
Morkill. The first is allegedly late eleventh century, the second a patent of Henry III and both
were designed to improve the Lambert pedigree.7

Correspondence survives in the collection from about 1680 to the present century, but the
majority and most important section is the correspondence of Thomas Lister, the first baron
It starts while he was still at school. As he took up the Clitheroe seat on his majority and
spent much of his adult life away from Gisburn, Ribblesdale was dependent on the post for
most of his news. The correspondence (arranged normally by year or correspondent)
contains a great deal on estate matters, Ribblesdale’s business interest and local events, for
example canal building in the late 1770s, together with some social correspondence. There is
little political correspondence (but some files of varying importance on Clitheroe elections).
An important series is the correspondence from Dr. Thomas Collins, who, while Ribbles-
dales employee, was also a personal friend and after 1805 his Domestic Chaplain 8 The
correspondence tails off in the later years of Ribblesdale’s life but is generally exceptionally
full. Later members of the family left much less. There is some from the fourth baron to his
steward and between members of the family, but this is of minor importance.

The Ribblesdale archive is rich in estate material especially for the life of the first baron.
The series of rentals starts in 1651 and while varying in detail is believed to be complete until
the later nineteenth century. There are tithe rentals for much of the same period. The estate
was entirely leashold; but there is no one series of leases. Some early leases have been
incorporated into Mrs. Tempest’s series of Gisburn deeds while others are scattered through
the collection and have still to be brought together. In the later eighteenth and nineteenth
century the estate was leased by tenancy agreements, but only a small number are known to
survive. For the lifetime of the first baron this loss is made good by a proliferation of field-
ooks and highly detailed rentals. There are a number of extremely good maps for this

e d • Publsbed tbe,late $ir Charles Clay ( Early Yorkshire Charters vii, p. 150) is now YAS MD 303.
fhp<Prmted m thtCStU4kry 87 and 8p) as numbers 2> 3 & 4, and an additional item on pages 62-4. All

Dodswcnrth mTi 5 J j?°dsWOrth whlle Penes Robert Hartley of Stirkhouse, Gisburn in 1629. Bodleian Library,

Malliamd^trt^ ^ ^ (oT^ry\ The Ancestor 3 (1902) pp. 14-35, J- W. Morkill, History of Kirkby

alhamdale (Gloucester ?I 933) Pp. 147-9- See also pi. 2 p. 152 (part of the Malham Tarn deeds).

(1967°™ h 9 S ^ Rlbb esdale documents are in the hands of Dr. Arthur Raistrick. See his Old Yorkshire Dales

ARCHIVAL NOTES

165

period, the best being a map of the Gisburn estate in 1812 by Francis White of York. 9There
is an earlier damaged map of the estate at Newsholme, Paythorne and Nappa of c. 1770.
There is no twentieth century material except for some letters from Ribblesdale to his
steward. The accounts start at the same early date as the rentals and continue into the
nineteenth century in a multiplicity of volume and forms. The Gisburn steward’s accounts
seem to be more or less complete with the addition of volumes for particular subjects.
Typical of these are a few surviving household accounts and building accounts of 1727-39.
There are also a few cash books of Charles Lister of London, a woollen-draper in the early
eighteenth century. A large volume of material on the first baron remains, including bills
and letters from tradesmen and cancelled promissory notes. The archive is probably full
enough for a thorough assessment of Ribblesdale’s financial arrangements to be made.
Other files exist for specific business interests, for example Lister’s interests in shipping in the
1780s and 1790s (including the log of the Brigantine Setniramis for 1784), and several
important files on Calamine mining on Malham Moor between 1790 and 1820.

Little is present in the collection for Malham under the Listers. There are a few rentals but
no steward’s accounts or fieldbooks. There are two maps of the Malham estate in 1760 by
R. and James Lang and another of West Malham Moor in 1780 by George Lang. The
present writer would be pleased to receive any information on the whereabouts of the
Malham section of the Ribblesdale archive.

The collection is not rich in manorial manuscripts. No court rolls from Salley Abbey are
known to survive (although a roll for the manor of Salley for 1592-6 is YAS DD 12 1/2/6). A
damaged court book for Gisburn 1563-1573 is in the collection. A number of seventeenth
century court rolls were published by William Self Weeks10 They are not known to survive.
Court rolls for occasional dates between 1746-1803 are in Mrs. Tempest’s bundle 43.
Occasional later court rolls for Malham and Paythorne survive. Court rolls for Paythorne
were detached from the collection and sold at Sotheby’s on 17 June 1969.* 11 A few seven-
teenth century court rolls for the Malham manors survive, but the best collection of Malham
manorial manuscripts is in the Lancashire Record Office (DDMa).

Among Ribblesdale documents not strictly about the estate are three volumes of Gisburn
township books (1811-39) and a Gisburn Vestry book (1827-54) minutes of Tipping’s
Charity in Gisburn, 1785-1854, of Gisburn Aimiable Society, 1777-94 and of Gisburn
Friendly Society, 1815-22.

The Ribblesdale archive is one of the most important collection in the possession of the
Society: it deserves to be one of the most frequently used. Furthermore it is a highly detailed
accumulation from an area with few large estates and a poor survival of archives. It is to be
hoped that the collection will soon be a familiar quarry and that we will have an adequate
study of the family and estate.

Besides Ribblesdale, MD 335 contains a number of other archive groups of varying sizes
and origins. In addition there are innumerable single items purchased in salerooms. Each
large group will be briefly considered together with a few of the best sale room items.

There is a group of papers relating to the estates of the Wilson family of Eshton near
Skipton, the Currers of Kildwick and the Richardsons of Bierley near Bradford. All these
estates came into the ownership of Sir Matthew Wilson.12 Regretably the collection has
become fragmented. A large portion is at Cliffe Castle Museum in Keighley, a further part
was purchased by the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds and a further group has

9 There is a file of correspondence on the making of this map. The original is 8 in. by 13 in. on rollers.

10 W. S. Weeks, An account of the rolls of the manor of Gisburn (Clitheroe n.d.). Weeks mentions other manorial
manuscripts in his possession.

11 But see Lancs R.O. DDPt.

12 For these families see the pedigrees in Whitaker op cit opp. p. 212 and 238.

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

1 66

been deposited in the Lancashire Record Office.13 Bradfer-Lawrence contains the first
Matthew Wilson of Eshton s inventory,11 his account books for Eshton and a few other
documents. Theie is a volume of rentals for the Gargrave estate, 1761—1801 and accounts for
the rebuilding of Eshton Hall, 1829-39. There are deeds for land in Gargrave, Flasby (in-
cluding Brockabank farm) and Hartlington. A number of seventeenth century court rolls
foi the manor of Burley in WTiarfedale may be from Eshton. The Currer group is small, but
includes a few Kildwick manorial manuscripts (eighteenth/nineteenth century), a volume of
accounts during the minority of Haworth Currer (1744-9) and a mid-eighteenth-century
map of his estate in Gargrave. There is a similar volume of accounts for the Minority of
Miss Richardson Currer. Besides the Richardson inventories published by Brears,1^ there is
a large collection of (mainly seventeenth century) deeds for Wyke and other Richardson
estates south of Bradford, court rolls for the manor of Cleckheaton cum Oakenshaw, 1690-
1878, nineteenth century accounts for Oakenshaw Colliery and rentals, 1802—1844 with
nineteenth century correspondence.

hTD 335 contains numerous miscellaneous documents relating to a large number of
Craven townships. These were thoroughly mixed when the collection was first examined;
they have been calendared as a group under the title of Miscellaneous Craven Manuscripts
(MCM) but the original order will be restored where possible. They number in all over 600
items, including deeds, wills, inventories, township documents and occasional letters. A
detailed calendar to this collection is in the hands of the present writer. Also included are
court rolls for the manors of Clapham (1758-1924) and Ingleton (1760-1834), a small group
of court rolls estreats and other documents for Tunstall (Lancs) and a seventeenth century
customal for the manors of Lawkland, Austwick, Newby and Clapham. Many Craven
townships are represented in a series of plans and fieldbooks drawn up by John Greenwood
of Gisburn in the 1830s for the Tithe Commissioners. A summary list is available.

The collection also contains a few documents dispersed from Ripley Castle at the time of
the 1920 sale. These include a number of Fountains Abbey charters from lot 118, the
fifteenth century ^stockbook (lot 58), the survey of 1540 (lot 59) and the so called sixteenth-
century Steward s Book (lot 60) which is in fact a volume kept by an unidentified obedien-
tiary. There are a few later Ingleby documents, including Sir William Ingleby’s sheriff’s
roil of 1 564. 16

Bradfer-Lawrence acquired a group of manuscripts from Chevet Hall relating to the
Pilkington family. These include virtually all those charters published in Yorkshire Deeds vii
and viii under the name of Sir Thomas Pilkington. There are also a small number which
remain unpublished, including two copies of the charter establishing the Pilkington Chantry
in Wakefield Church (1475). There is an account roll for the building of Chevet in 151617
and a box of unsorted sevv-nteenth century correspondence and accounts including papers on
Sandal Park. Formerly belonging to Dr. E. G. Millar are 169 thirteenth/fourteenth-century
deeds relating to the area around Snaith, part of the Dawney Collection (YAS MD 182). A
few are printed in Yorkshire Deeds X; the whole was roughly calendared by Bradfer-
Lawrence.18 Besides these there are medieval deeds for a large number of locations, mostly
uncalendared, including the two Kirklees charters published by the late Sir Charles Clay.19

13 The Hopkinson mss from North Bierley described by the Historic Mss Commission while at Eshton (HMC
3rd Report pp. 293—300) are now in the Local Studies Library, Bradford Central Library.

14 Printed by P. C. D. Brears, Yorkshire Probate Inventories (YASRS 134), pp. 105-118.

15 Brears op cit pp. 1 00-105, 124-131.

16 An edition of the Stockbook by D. J. H. Michelmore is forthcoming; it has been cited extensively in his edition
of the Fountains Lease Book (FASRS, forthcoming). The survey of 1540 is the version printed in Surtees Society 42
(1862) by J. R. Walbran. All were calendared by HMC ( 6th Report, p. 358b). I am indebted to Mr. Michelmore for
his comments on these documents. An inventory of Sir William Ingleby of Ripley was sold at Sotheby’s on 17 Tune
1969, lot 482.

17 Printed by W. E. Preston in Y.A.J. 32 (1934-6), pp. 326-330.

18 The society possess an excellent court roll for Snaith for 1355-6, MD 237c.

19 C. T. Clay, ‘Two charters issued to Kirklees Priory’, Y.A.J. 38 (1955), pp. 355-9.

ARCHIVAL NOTES

I67

Among miscellaneous volumes purchased by Bradfer-Lawrence are a sixteenth-century
volume of arms and pedigrees of Yorkshire Gentry from the library of Ralph Thoresby20
and a parish register for Howden and its chapelries, 1543-1645. The edition of the register
printed by the Yorkshire Parish Register Society in 1904 is from a parchment copy formerly
at the church. The present volume is on paper leaves bound in leather and was purchased by
Sir Thomas Phillipps in 1868. 21 It is in excellent condition and contains memoranda addi-
tional to the printed text. The account book of the Overseers of the Highways of Knares-
borough, c. 1719-1855, contains accounts (becoming less detailed towards the end) and other
items. These include notes on tolls, memoranda of vestry meetings, a list of houses taken by
the Overseers of the Poor in 1738 and a list of all settlement certificates granted between 1698
and 1828. Pages 265-290 are a census of Knaresborough, taken street by street in 1800,
listing both the name of the householder, and the number of adults and children under ten in
each household. The East Riding is represented by an account (valuation) of the estates of
those charged with the maintenance of a horse under the Militia Act of 1662 (13/14 Ch. 2,
C2) arranged by name and then by township. This is an item which deserves publication.

While these notes are no more than a sketch of its contents, it is the author’s hope that they
will direct attention to MD 335 and encourage its widest use.

20 Numbered 42 in the list of manuscripts in Thorsby’s library; R. Thoresby, Ducatus Leodiensis fed. T. D.
Whitaker (1816)), p. 7 6.

21 Formerly Phillipps 19971. For its purchase, see A. N. L. Munby, Phillipps Studies IV (1956), pi. 142.

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 51, 1979

169

BOOK REVIEWS

P. V. Addyman (General Editor), The Archaeology of York, London: Council for British Archaeology for the York
Archaeological Trust; vol. 4, The Colonia, fascicule 1, M. O. H. Carver, S. Donaghey and A. B. Sumpter, Riverside
structures and a well in Skeldergate and buildings in Bishophill, 1978, pp. 54-f-pl. 20+6 pull-out figs., with 13 in-text
fi,4-75'- v°l- 17, The small finds, fasc. 2, Arthur MacGregor, Roman Finds from Skeldergate and Bishophill, 1978,
pp. 66 with 32 in-text figs., £2.50.

These two booklets do not include all the relevant evidence for the excavations which they describe. One dis-
advantage of the method of publication adopted by the York Trust is that all the necessary data for one site is not
published in one place or at the same time. In the present instance we still lack importantly the ceramic evidence,
whilst some environmental evidence is available for Skeldergate in vol. 19, fasc. 1, reviewed elsewhere in this
journal. Although cumbersome bibliographically and not simultaneous the fascicules do at least appear fairly
promptly. The price seems high and this reviewer believes that the most economic form of archaeological publication
is in the relevant county journal. Part of the reason for the high price must be the quality of the printing. These
books are a pleasure to handle. Both text and illustrations are clearly legible and easy on the eye. There are no
obvious misprints.

A large proportion of both booklets is taken up by a description of the well, justified to some extent by the fine
preservation of its wooden structure and of the objects found in it. Evidentially however it is probably the least
important part of these excavations and it is open to question whether so much time and money should have been
spent on it in a situation where the Trust is compelled to select what it can rescue. It does however raise questions
about the nature of the water-supply to the colonia as a whole and the extent to which the piped water system
(R.C.H.M. York 1,51) served the needs of the town in quantity or quality.

On Bishophill we now have proof that the massive terrace found under the adjacent church of Bishophill Senior
( Y.A.J. 48 (1976), 36-7) continued under the next building-block to the north-west, and confirmation of its date
from the large quantity of late second-century pottery found in its build-up. A lesser terrace was found lower down
in Skeldergate. The authors are surely right in suggesting that an ambitious engineering project on this scale must
belong to an extensive town-planning scheme by the authority of a municipium, if such existed (R.C.H.M., York,

1, xxx vi), or for the foundation of the colonia itself. The earliest known date for the existence of the colonia is that
provided by the Bordeaux inscription, A.D. 237. Many scholars associate the granting of this status to the town at
York with the stay there of the emperor Severus, A.D. 209-11. But if the dedication of a temple to Serapis belongs
to the same general rebuild (R.C.H.M. York, 1, 54, 119), then from what we know of the career of the dedicator
Claudius Hieronymianus he should have been in York c.A.D. 200, and the rebuilding should be put before the stay
of Severus in York and possibly before the granting of colonial status.

The further inference that the massive terracing and town-planning was for public buildings is made only in the
summary on p. 50, which also goes further than the text in implying contemporaneity between the terracing and the
buildings on it. In the main text the authors are careful not to go beyond ‘well-appointed buildings stood here in
the later Roman period’ and do not even make deductions of contemporaneity between the three ranges of buildings
that they found, let alone with the terracing. A new statement not included in the interpretation and discussion
should not be reserved for what purports to be a summary of the text. The implications of public town-planning
need not exclude private buildings along any streets laid out or on the terracing.

It is unfortunate that the evidence was only that of robbed wall-trenches and more confident deductions could
not be made about the nature of the buildings and their date and any succession of structures identified after the
erection of the terracing. Apsed and heated rooms need not imply even a bath suite in a private house and far less
a public bath-house. Both the excavation under the adjacent church and the Trust’s own excavation in Clementhorpe
( Y.A.J . 49 (1977), 7) have revealed a type of town-house of fourth-century date with apsed and heated rooms. A
further example could be the apsed building in Bishophill Junior (Y.A.J. 41 (1963), 13; 42 (1968), 117). The case for
a bath-suite on the present site is improved by the finding of drains but the scale is not sufficiently greater than the
other sites to necessitate the assumption of public baths.

On the lower site in Skeldergate less structural evidence was obtained. In addition to the well a sequence of seven *
successive roads parallel to the river were identified ranging from the first to the late fourth century. In the early
third century a wall was built on the river side of the road. In the summary it is called simply a retaining wall but
in the text the authors give equal weight to the possibility that the wall was defensive. The course, date and structure
of the colonia defences is one of the major problems of Roman York, and the suggestion that the north-eastern,
river, front may have been found in Skeldergate is thus an important one. Such a defensive wall would exclude any
wharves or quays from the defended area but in any case Roman harbour facilities are more likely to have been
off the main river with its need for extensive jettying.

The finds fascicule includes an important discussion by Dr. Frank Jenkins of two figurines, both imports from
Central Gaul, a coin list, and a description of the wooden bucket from the well and a small collection of well pre-
served leather shoes. In addition there is the usual collection of small objects illustrating most aspects of life in the
Roman town. The ‘well-appointed buildings’ of the upper terrace, however, did not produce finds reflecting more
than ‘moderate prosperity’.

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, York Herman Ramm

H. K. Kenward, The Analysis of Archaeological Insect Assemblages: A New Approach. The Archaeology of York —
Principles and Methods 19/1. Council for British Archaeology for York Archaeological Trust 1978. £4.75.

*• • • and very little is left of them; and now nobody knows what they were, save a few archaeological old
gentlemen who scratch in queer corners, and find little there save Ptinum Furem, Blaptem Mortisagam, Acarum
Horridum and Tineam Laciniarum.’ Charles Kingsley— The Water Babies

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

170

The acceptance of palaeoecological techniques as an integral part of archaeological research in the urban environ-
ment represents one of the more important aspects of the work of the York Archaeological Trust. Despite the
problems of an establishment which still maintains a dichotomy between excavation and the application of scientific
techniques, this association has been maintained in York and Harry Kenward’s research does reflect it. It seems
unfortunate therefore that the first monograph from the Environmental Archaeology Unit in the University of
York should tend towards a departure from the multidisciplinary approach. This departure, in part, must stem from
the fascicule system of publication adopted by the Trust and other similar units, divorcing small finds from pottery,
bones from cemetery and church, insects from macroplants and all from the essentially archaeological stratigraphy.
Kenward’s bugs and beetles, some of which are figured in a particularly fine series of scanning electron micrographs,
as a result, float in an ethereal world, rarely taking account of the other lines of evidence, which might sink or
support the various models. It says much for his experience of modern insect faunas that his palaeoenvironments are
convincing without the support of other lines of evidence and his exposition on the problems of archaeological
insect assemblages should be read by all involved in environmental archaeology. The contrast between those involved
in the more regional aspects of palaeoentomology and those providing a service to archaeological interpretation lies
in their attitudes to what Kenward refers to as ‘the background fauna’. The Quaternary entomologist requires as
broad a sample of contemporary fossil insect communities as possible to draw conclusions about changing climate
and landscapes, whereas the archaeologist — and in particular the urban archaeologist — is inevitably tied down with
minutiae. Often, the questions he asks the palaeoentomologist are incapable of resolution and seldom does the
excavator realise the parameters within which his specialists must work; tentative models become fact and the
inadequacies of modern data are lost in the enthusiasm for a particular hypothesis. Kenward’s paper, in many ways
expressing his wown misgivings on the subject, may help to rectify thus but his application of basic numerical
techniques represents a step beyond, which many fear to tread, and I remain unconvinced that his reconstructed
palaeoenvironments would have been any different, if they had been based, as I am sure in the first instance they
were, purely upon traditional natural historical lines; in no way does the use of a computer replace first-hand
experience of the material and, for that reason, ‘archaeoentomology’ will always remain the preserve of few.

Although Kenward claims ‘a new approach’, many of the arguments have been rehearsed before. Rank order
curves were used by Coope and Sands in Proc. Royal Soc. B165 (1966), pp. 389-412 and Osborne in Britannia 2 (1971)
pp. 156-265, although there then seemed little need to draw them to the attention of readers. Southwood i n Ecological
Methods (1978) provides detailed discussion of the application of numerical techniques to modern insect populations
Kenward, however, writes for a different market and in bringing to the notice of archaeologists techniques widely
used by palaeontologists, he makes a most worthwhile contribution, free from the second-hand methodological
jargon which bedevils the interfaces between archaeology and many other disciplines. In the absence of any textbook
of Quaternary entomology, this fascicule makes an ideal teaching volume, although I have several reservations about
Department of the Environment support for the publication of theoretical papers, when the massive backlog of
unpublished excavations is considered.

There remain many problems in the use of insect remains in the interpretation of archaeological environments and
Kenward is exceptionally fortunate in having sufficiently large assemblages and good archaeological liaison to be
able to consider some of them. A little more critical comment on those archaeologists who still think that environ-
mental sampling consists in sending an inadequate, poorly labelled bag of soil to some scientist working in total
isolation would not have been out of place in the paper, although Kenward, like myself, probably finds such un-
solicited samples useful for improving the soil in the garden. The converse of this, where the archaeologist thinks
that the environmental scientists is the answer to all his prayers and shortcomings in excavation technique, may be as
much of a problem; not only is one asked to get blood from the stone but also to separate the white from the red
corpuscles. Sites, like the York sewer (AY 14-1), are clearly of little value in terms of the insect faunas alone and
it is only the integrated approach which props up a rather insecure model. Insect evidence, however, cannot only be
treated in terms of numbers of individuals and Kenward has yet to explore the numerical methods of weighting taxa
and communities in terms of their value as particulate pieces of evidence — one blind, flightless monophage, in the
right context, might be worth a thousand mobile eurytopes — and the problems of weighting the various lines of
evidence extends beyond the insects to their comparison with other lines of evidence and thereby to the initial
costing of an archaeological excavation and its publication. Kenward, no doubt, realises the inherent subjectivityof
these aspects and only touches on them at the end of his paper but the careful costing of all aspects of an archaeo-
logical excavation is rarely attempted and is unlikely to be whilst the Ancient Monuments Laboratory and its
subsidiaries, like the York Laboratory, remain distinct from the excavation side. Kenward’s veiled comments upon
costing specialist services for archaeology are a step in the right direction, coupled with a consideration of potentially
time-saving computer techniques, and I look forward to similar discussion from sedimentologists, botanists and
others, perhaps costed out in terms of hard cash for the benefit of those who presently arbitrarily decide where
archaeological funds should be spent.

University of Birmingham P. C. Buckland

Janet E. Burton (Ed.), The Cartulary of the Treasurer of York Minster and Related Documents, Borthwick Texts and
Calendars: Records of the Northern Province 5, University of York, 1978, pp. xvii ff- 92, fi. 50. Available from
the Borthwick Institute, St. Anthony’s Hall, York YOi 2PW, -£2.50 + 3°P- postage and packing.

The treasurership was one of the tour greater offices of the medieval York Minster, and the richest next to the
deanery; indeed, it was one of the wealthiest benefices in all England. The treasurer’s official duties included,
naturally, the care of the cathedral treasures, and their plunder by the Crown provided an excuse for the suppression
of the office in 1547. The Crown’s real interest, however, was seizure of the treasurer’s considerable estates and
revenues. He held not only a great house in York (Gray’s Court rather than the so-called Treasurer’s House) but also
the prebends of Newthorpe and Wilton, extensive estates in Yorkshire including the manors of Acomb, Alne and
Tollerton, and substantial possessions in Hampshire. He also possessed spiritual jurisdiction over a considerable
number of churches in both counties.

BOOK REVIEWS AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

171

Unfortunately, the abolition of the office at the Reformation has made its history and possessions more difficult to
trace than those of the dean, chancellor and precentor. The extensive archives of the dean and chapter in York
Minster Library include very few original documents relating to the treasurership, although an index compiled
before 1540 listed over seventy then among the Minster muniments, only one of which appears in the cartulary. The
likelihood is that the treasurer kept most of his archives separately from an early date, and that they were dispersed
and lost after 1547. It is therefore fortunate that a short cartulary of the treasurer survives — a mere 16 folios of a
composite volume — and that it is now available in a scholarly edition

The cartulary contains 41 documents, none of which is known to survive as an original. They range in date from
1085 X 1087 to 1414, although they are able to cast little light on the origins of the treasurer’s office and jurisdiction in
the early Norman period; the earliest document relating to his estates is one of 1154 X 1161 indicating his possession
of the church of Alne. For the twelfth to fourteenth centuries the cartulary is of great value, especially as the in-
defatigable James Torre, on whose labours we have all relied heavily for nearly three centuries, seems to have
overlooked it. Miss Burton has provided a full text of the cartulary, together with a calendar of 59 other documents
relating to the endowments of the treasurership, a crisp and helpful introduction, and last but far from least, a full
index. She is to be congratulated on a most useful and scholarly edition, and so too is the Borthwick Institute on
producing the volume at a very modest price.

University of Birmingham D. M. Palliser

K. M. Cocker and IT. Taylor (eds), Historic Almondhury: the Village on the Hill, Huddersfield: Kirklees Libraries and
Museums Service, 1975, 79 pp., £0.90, ISBN o 9502568 2 x.

This work is a collection of twenty-three short papers on particular aspects of the history of Almondbury. The
shortness of the papers has made it impossible for any of the authors to explore their subject matter in any depth,
but nevertheless they will perform their purpose in arousing interest in the local history of the township. Inevitably
some of the contributions are of greater value than others. That on the parish church is of relatively little weight buc,
to name only two of the better papers, D. A. Kirby has provided an admirably succinct account of the township’s
field system and F. S. Hudson’s discussion of its highways is made even more useful by the map at the end of the
book, which shows the routes of ancient roads, including those no longer in use, and provides the dates at which
more recent roads were built. The four chapters on the larger houses in the township are purely historical and lack
any architectural description or plan; similarly a reference to Mr. Manby’s article on Fletcher House in Vol. 41 of
this Journal would not have been out of place. A number of the contributions are illustrated by photographs of
traditional houses in Almondbury, but the volume lacks any discussion of the vernacular architecture of the area, of
particular relevance in an area where houses so clearly reflect the dual economy. The editors are to be congratulated
on producing a work which demonstrates that popular history can be written from a sound academic approach and
the reviewer hopes that the success of the present work will encourage them to produce further volumes, with fewer
and longer articles, in the future.

West Yorkshire County Archaeological Unit D. J. H. Michelmore

R. Fieldhouse and B. Jennings, A History of Richmond and Swaledale, Phillimore, London and Chichester 1978,
pp. 520, pis 18, figs 12 + 6 maps, £9-50.

In 1821 Christopher Clarkson published his History of Richmond. Since that date there has been no work of com-
parable range or scholarship on Richmond until this new publication. No work of a comparable nature has ever
been attempted on Swaledale. For ten years it has been common knowledge that this new work was in preparation
and this has been a source of satisfaction and pleasurable anticipation to lovers of Richmond and Swaledale. It is
unfortunate that, as published, this book falls short of those expectations.

First its merits. It provides a useful framework history of Swaledale with some particularly strong elements —
lead-mining, agrarian practices, land-ownership, vernacular architecture, population and social and economic history
in general. As regards Richmond it covers the general history of the place from Clarkson’s time to the present day in
commendable fashion which will make present and future historians indebted to the joint authors’ and their WEA
classes at Richmond and Reetli. The Richmond chapters are especially strong on social and economic history. At the
end of every chapter in the book very full references are cited, a boon to all future workers in the field.

The history of Richmond up to 1821 already covered by Clarkson is dealt with by these authors in a manner very
different from his. He was mainly concerned with political, religious and genealogical subjects; the new work
emphasises social, economic and architectural factors in which he was generally uninterested. Use is made of sources
unknown to him — Lay Subsidy, Hearth Tax and Census Returns, wills and inventories and family archives (especi-
ally such voluminous collections as those of the Dundas, Hutton and Lawson families deposited in the North York-
shire County Record Office at Northallerton), together with documents still in private hands. Of the latter two are
of special interest — those of Mr. J. L. Barker and Mr. and Mrs. J. E. E. Yorke. The Richmond Corporation Coucher
Books and other Municipal Records in NYCRO have been diligently combed while good use has been made of the
various books, paper and articles on specific Richmond and Swaledale subjects published during the past century or
so.

But, having registered these not inconsiderable credits the book leaves one questioning and disappointed. The style
is arid and uninspired. It is arguable that too much has been attempted. The two topics of Richmond and Swaledale
only occasionally overlap and, despite their topographical proximity, have surprisingly little in common. If they had
been written — and published — as two separate books they would have been more viable, easier to handle and more
aesthetic than the present bulky, unattractive volume.

As regards the historical content some parts of the book are open to considerable criticism. Chapter I ‘Pre-history
(sic) and Early Settlement’ and its attendant Appendix I ‘Prehistoric and Roman Settlement Sites’ is quite inadequate
and adds nothing to such— now — hopelessly out-dated works as the Victoria County History (1909) and William
Edwards The Early History oj the North Riding (1924). The authors clearly have little archaeological expertise and have
leant heavily on the opinions — oral and printed — of others. The archaeology of Richmond and Swaledale requires a
completely new and serious study by a specialist arcbaeologist-c«m-historian. The authors acknowledge this, com-

172

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

meriting (p. 3) that the area awaits ‘a thorough archaeological survey’. This chapter and appendix contain some
inexcusable mis-spellings.

Another section open to serious criticism is Appendix 4— ‘Richmond and Swaledale Charities for the relief of
poverty and Social Rehabilitation’. The list of authorities cited for this section is a long one (p. 323 note 80) and
includes Clarkson’s History of Richmond where it specifically refers to pp. 204 and 228-247. It is surprising to find that
Clarkson deals with the Richmond charities in such detail that he adds materially to the information given in the new
work and also more accurately ! There are some surprising errors in the latter: I note the two most glaring ones here,
(r) The fourth charity cited under ‘Richmond’ is that of ‘Jas Cottrell (sic) . . . Lost by 1822’. In'fact, the ‘Annual
Yield’ from this bequest— £8 per annum— is still paid to the Rector of Richmond ! The £100 from which it accrues
was given by James Cotterell (the correct spelling of his name) in his will dated 1 575. At the same time he donated to
the Corporation of Richmond the famous silver salt now displayed with the rest of the Richmond insignia in the
Regimental Museum of The Green Howards in Trinity Chapel in Richmond Market Place. (2) The ‘Dr’ Chas.
Bathurst’ (p. 485 under the date 1659) and p. 488 under the same date is, in fact, Dr. John Bathurst, the physician to
Oliver Cromwell and one of the most famous of the Old Boys of Richmond Grammar School. The bequest referred,
to was, in fact, a dual one. A rent charge of £ 12 arising from ‘the house now known by the sign of the King’s Head
and several acres of land lying in different parts of the Gallowfield belonging to Lord Dundas’ (Clarkson, p. 236)
It was to be divided as follows— £8 for the maintenance of two poor scholars at the University of Cambridge and
£\ for apprenticing one poor boy annually. The new book says the charity was ‘Lost by 1822’. It is, in fact, still paid.

Also open to criticism are the illustrations. (1) Plates between pp. 146 and 147. It is not evident why these particular
illustrations were chosen rather than others. Some are dated, others are not. Some are so small and indistinct (e.g. nos.
10-12) that the features they are intended to illustrate— lynchets, enclosures and intakes— are barely visible. (2) Fig-
ures 2-12. Plans and elevations of Swaledale and Richmond houses. The explanatory captions are microscopic and
the drawings themselves are schematic and characterless. Some are dated, some are not. (3) Maps 1-6. All would
have looked much more professional if they had been set in a lined frame. All are poorly annotated and again, in
many cases, the titles are small. The same contour line on Map 1 is captioned ‘1500 feet’ and on Map 3 as ‘2000 feet’ !

Map 1. Some symbols have no name alongside them and, therefore, because of the small scale of the map, are
meaningless and unrelated to any precise location. Map 2. This could have been more adventurous and meaningful
if it had set out to convey more of medieval Richmond to include such additional places as all religious buildings
(chapels etc.) corn and fulling mills, dye-house, tenters, pinfold etc. Further, why are no burgage plots shown on
The Green? Maps 3 and 6. Both seem pointless and, being undated, have little relevance. Map 4. Exactly what is this
trying to convey — all religious houses of all periods and of all denominations before 1800? If so, it attempts the
impossible, for it is historically dubious to talk about the Anglican Church before the Reformation. What are the
two ‘Religious Houses’ at Easby? Presumably one is the Praemonstratensian House of St. Agatha and the other the
Benedictine Priory of St. Martin. If this interpretation be correct it should be pointed out that the Priory is nearly a
mile upstream of the Abbey. Again, Richmond apparently had six ‘Anglican’ churches before 1800! The only
possible explanation of this — as I see it — is that it includes the various medieval chapels in the town which were, of
course, Roman Catholic before the Reformation after which most of them fell into ruins. Again doesn’t the
Grammar School in Richmond rank as an ‘Endowed School’ or is the symbol a misprint?

Throughout the book there are a number of doubtful historical ‘facts’. I draw attention to five, but the number
could be multiplied many times. (1) The Hospital of St. Nicholas near Richmond (p. 69) was refounded in 1448 by
William Ayscough and not by Henry VI as stated. (2) Richmond chantries (pp. 70-1). The authors might have added
that the ‘College’ (cf. Clarkson, pp. 224-5) was, almost certainly, the residence of all or some of the Richmond
chantry priests and should be compared with St. William’s College in York. It was situated on the north side of the
Market Place between Finkle Street and Friars’ Wynd. (3) House in Bridge Street with date-stone 1689 (p. 263)
Architecturally this house, like so many other in Richmond, dates to c. 1750-1800. The dating criteria are the
tripartite keystones of the lintels over the windows and doors. The date-stone — and the door itself— probably came
from an earlier house on, or near, the site. (4) Bishop Blaize Inn (p. 179). Until about 1820 this was, in fact, the Black
Bull Inn. (5) The ‘ . . . William Thorne [who] founded the Methodist new connection at Leeds’ (p. 352) should
read ‘ . . . William Thom [who] founded the Methodist New Connexion at Leeds’.

What detracts so much from the book is the poor — or complete lack of — proof reading after the setting-up of the
type. Over 500 spelling and grammatical errors have been noted : some are inexcusable. Capital letters and hyphens
are used throughout in a quite arbitrary manner and make no attempt to conform with standard English practice.
The writer has deposited at the North Yorkshire County Record Office at Northallerton and at the YAS Head-
quarters at Claremont, Leeds a list of all the errors — grammatical and historical — which have come to his notice.
What a shame that the Richmond and Reeth WEA classes were not invited to check the proofs : they would un-
questionably have spotted dozens which have crept into the printed version.

The two indices — of Persons and Subjects — are too limited for a book of this length. There is no Location Index.

Much laborious work has gone into this book. Nothing on this scale is likely to be repeated for another 150 years —
the period of time between its publication and that of Clarkson’s History. Richmond and Swaledale deserve some-
thing better than this; so does the reader at nearly £10 a copy. It is arguable that the time for these long local his-
tories is past. What is needed are short detailed, authoritative, thoroughly researched monographs on specific topics.

^ or k Leslie P. Wenham

David EIey, The Making of South Yorkshire, Ashbourne: the Moorland Publishing Company, 1979, pp. 160, 70 illus.
£S-75-

David Hey s The Making of South Yorkshire is a work intended, as the author claims in his preface, for the ‘interested
amateur . The book deals with an area which, although only made a county in 1974, has long been recognised as a
topographic unit, as witnessed by Joseph Hunter’s monumental history which appeared as long ago as 1831. Al-
though now chiefly famed for industry, the environs of Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster are still
stamped with many indications of a pre-industrial past, and it is with these that this work deals, from the Roman
period up to the Civil War.

BOOK REVIEWS AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

173

The exclusion of pre-Roman archaeology, or rather its limitation to a brief account in the introduction, is justified
on the grounds that unpublished recent work, notably aerial photography, has meant that the traditional picture of
the region at this period will have to be completely revised. The book is divided into three main sections, Romans,
Angles and Vikings’, ‘The Middle Ages’ and ‘From the Reformation to the Civil War’, and each of these is sub-
divided under a number of headings, dealing both with historical matters and the visible evidences of these in the
landscape today. The field covered is wide and the treatment of specialist topics necessarily brief, however much
previously unpublished information appears in a very readable form.

In some cases traditionally held views on sites and structures are restated, which may be queried in the light of
recent work, an inevitable consequence of attempting such a wide ranging survey. This is seen in the section dealing
with Roman roads, in the list of Anglo-Saxon crosses (p. 34) where Barnburgh, High Melton and Thrybergh should
not really be included since they are now thought to be of Post-Conquest date, and in the description of the earliest
‘industrial’ building in the county, Kirkstead Abbey Grange (formerly Monks’ Smithy Houses), as being a twelfth
century structure — the round headed windows and doorways here, traditionally described as Norman are in fact
probably sixteenth century work.

Such criticisms are minor. The book is generally accurate, written in a lively and attractive style, and set out in a
neat and practical manner, with copious illustrations, maps and photographs, all of a very high standard. It will be a
pity if it is read only by the ‘interested amateurs’ within South Yorkshire. David Hey’s ability to lucidly communi-
cate a broad picture of the county’s past, a picture often illuminated by his own documentary researches, deserves a
wider appreciation.

South Yorkshire County Archaeological Service Peter F. Ryder

David and Mary Palliser, York as they saw it— from Alenin to Lord Esher, York, The Ebor Press 1979, pp. 98, pi. 13,

figs. 4- ^3-50. . . . , r

In this attractive little compilation are gathered 55 impressions of York, written by visitors over a period or 1200
years and well illustrated with a variety of views, some of which, like the quotations themselves, are not easily to be
found elsewhere. There can be nothing but praise for the judicious selection and helpful commentary, which all
lovers of the city will be eager to possess. They will be glad to have in one collection extracts from Alcuin, Leland,
Celia Fiennes, Arthur Young and Charles Dickens. Lord Torrington, a visitor in 1792, is represented by an entertain-
ing piece from his diaries. New to many will be the accounts ot the Frenchmen Blanqui and d Eichtal and the
German Kohl, with interesting comparisons between the Retreat and other mental hospitals, between the Minster
and Cologne Cathedral and between the prison with ‘the same defect as all English prisons: the convicts are too

comfortable’ and other goals. ...

In 1660 York was renowned for cheap and plentiful food: ‘such persons who in their eating consult both their
purse and palate would choose this city as the staple place of good cheer’. In 1705 ‘pretty ladyes’ were ‘here very
numerous’. Already in 1828 hotel bedrooms were provided with bibles by forerunners of the Gideons. Two
seventeenth century visitors noted the preservation of St. William’s bones in the Minster vestry by the king s
command and praised Sir Arthur Ingram’s pleasure gardens where Dean’s Park is now. The Shambles, however, go
unnoticed in these extracts until 1924, when the other similar lanes of quaint houses had been demolished.

With such a wealth of material collected for the reader’s instruction, it is hard to quarrel with the choice of
quotations. Unfortunately Samuel Pepys, briefly in York in 1682, left no description. However, Henry Keepe’s
projected history, left in manuscript at about the same time, and William Hutton s Tour to Scarborough might Doth
have been worth quoting. Possibly J. Skinner, the irascible antiquarian rector of Camerton, in York c 1820, has left
remarks in one of his 150 notebooks as worthy of inclusion as the snippets from William Mason, Sydney Smith and
Robert Surtees. Presumably William Etty, already in 1830 advocating conservation of antiquities as an attraction to
tourists, is excluded as a native, while Payne Fisher’s latin epic on the siege of 1644 and James Montgomery’s
Pleasures of Imprisonment were rejected as too gushing. Franzero could have given a modern Italian view to add to
Pius II’s. The Pallisers may yet find accounts from American, Chinese and other foreign tourists to include in a future
edition !

The excellent production by William Sessions will earn the gratitude of authors and readers for the care and
expertise with which yet another useful book has been laid before the public.

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, York. Ik. M. Butler

Deborah Sutton, (Ed.), York Civic Records: Volume IX, Yorks, Arch. Soc. Record Series, cxxxviii, 1978 for 1976,
pp. viii -f 148, no price stated.

The ‘house books’ or minute books of the corporation of York cover the years 147b to 1835 in 80 volumes, and
are an invaluable source for many aspects of the city’s history. Canon Angelo Raine, the city’s honorary archivist,
edited the bulk of the entries from the first 29 books (plus the beginning of Book 30) as eight volumes of the Record
Series between 1939 and 1953, a set which has been endlessly consulted and cited by national and urban historians as
well as students of the city. Unfortunately Canon Raine, an able and enthusiastic amateur archivist, did not always
meet the stringent requirements of modern scholarly editing. All his volumes contain numerous misreadings and
omit numerous entries with no indication, some because he thought them trivial, a few because of bowdlerisation
and a few because he was unable to read them. It would be unfair to labout the point, for he was working in poor
light without the aid of the ultra-violet lamp, and his edition is still an enormous aid to research; but it does not
obviate reference to the original manuscripts for serious students. It is therefore very welcome news that the Record
Series have continued his work in a further volume edited by a professional archivist and generously subsidised by the
Sheldon Memorial Trust. Let us fervently hope that volume IX will be only the first of a new series which will take
the story into the seventeenth century.

Miss Sutton’s edition covers years (August 1588-January 1591) and only 160 folios out of a house book of 390
folios, as against Raine’s last volume which covered 9% years and some 640 folios, but the comparison is misleading.
Raine, who had started by printing all significant entries, became more and more selective, whereas Miss Sutton has
reverted to a more comprehensive approach. She has aimed to print in full most entries except for legal actions,

174

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

C°PieS °f < htt' Td and ars^mPle check sugg«ts that her transcriptions are much more
reliable than Raine s. The volume is prefaced by a useful introduction on the corporation and its workings, and a note

on the manuscript by Ann Rycraft, and rounded off by three indexes, though these are topographically incomplete
and refer to folios rather than to pages. Altogether the volume is a great advance on its predecessors Miss Sutton

a°f|Tera liate5es* ofthe kind Rame omitted or abridged, such as the exact voting record
for M.P.s in i>88 (p. 26) and does not abridge entries without indication. Unlike Raine she does not expurgate the
very fruity language used by citizens 111 resisting officialdom (e.g. pp. 29, 67). F

Unfortunately, the volume cannot be given an unqualified welcome.’ It is neither a calendar nor a text of all
en ries, but a text of selected entries only, with no indication of the contents of most omitted items. On a rough count
some 20 per cent of entries are completely omitted, and though they are usually of less general interest (e.g fines’
leases, arbitrations of quarrels), the reasons for printing some and omitting others are not always self-evident The
corporation s struggle for a new charter first appears on p. 44 (f. 94v), and the important earlier entry on f. 78 v is
missed. Then running battle to avoid ship money is mostly included, but not the entry showing that they were
prepared to pay two aldermen as much as £26 12s. od. to go to London ‘for avoydinge the contribucion’ (f. 79r).

I p,- dlfficult ^xt 1S evfr perfect, but occasional misprints are misleading, such as ‘anno 1290’ for ‘anno 290

[Elizabeth] (p. 34), and Lyme Regis for Lynn Regis (i.e. King’s Lynn) (pp. 48, 144). There is no indication in tex^
note or index as to the identity of the Mr. Daveson and Mr. Beate’ who were to be invited by the city’s M.P s to
ecorne paid advisers to the corporation (p. 35). ‘Beate’ is a mistranscription of ‘Beale’, and they were surely William
avison, the Secretary of State and Robert Beale, the clerk to the Privy Council. These examples could be multi-
p led, and in one respect the edition marks a retreat on Raine’s standard, for no attendance figures are given for

HowfTO it would be wrong to end on a critical note. Miss Sutton has provided a very useful service by making
widely available a fascinating collection of material. The volume includes not only the corporation’s struggles tS

7TC l ""I T1 l° -Td Shl? money’ ,but mformatlon on aPPrenticedship and gilds, churchgoing, sports and
pastimes, travel the weather, and many other topics. We see the difficult position of the Earl of Huntirbdon as
President of the Northern Council, well disposed to the city father but occasionally compelled to pass on reprimands
from the privy council Leading courtiers-Walsingham, Hatton-try unsuccessfully to exercise patronage, over the
office of town clerk The salt monopoly is modified through Huntingdon’s mediation, and soon citizens are making

b' bf 'iM bf f , °‘C V"|J W1 Shlelds’ as there 1S a ‘sreat scarstie' in the city. York escapes epidemics during
e period, but the lurking tear of them is momentarily illuminated when the councillors pay a surgeon handsomely

for viewing a body and confirming that the victim was not ‘visited with a danugerous sicknes’. In short the volume
gives a fascinating insight into the world of late Elizabethan York.

University of Birmingham ^ ^ Palliser

’ A'a rv” Age f nc\osure. at Pldfield Hill, Meltham , A Sepcial Report for the Brigantian The Journal of the
Huddersfield and District Archaeological Society, 1976, pp. 16, lllus., price not stated.

11s small sub-rectangular banked and externally ditched enclosure was first excavated by Ammon Wrisdey in
1909 with indeterminate result The site attracted the attention of the late Prof. Ian Richmond who in 1923 sectioned
the banks and area excavated the entrance (Y.A.J. 29 (1924), p. 319). Richmond believed the fort to be early Flavian
and suggested a trans-I enmne route linking it with a comparable earthwork in Kirklees Park, 15 kilometres to the
north-east. No detailed plans or sections ot either excavation were published.

Toomey devoted eight successive seasons between i960 and 1967, to sectioning the earthworks and sampling two
internal areas. Beneath the bank on the north and west a continuous rock-cut trench with a parallel row of regularly

TtfriST t0rV ilStafe beh/nd Xt was klterPreted as a double palisade; neither trench nor post holes were

detected beneath the bank on the south or east, though there is no reason why the two should be coincident through-
out. The author draws a parallel with the twin palisaded enclosure at Huckhoe, Northumberland, but sites of eq'ual
relevance like High Knowe m the same county, West Brandon, County Durham and White Hill, Peebles are not
considered, nor are those enclosures which have been attributed, on a variety of dateable evidence, to the Late
the latter might well be ancestral to the Oldfield Hill type and worthy of mention would have been

Berkshir<:’ wh^f ,r°mPuan e featUr? were viewed as a free-standing stockade with a fighting platform,
e primary work at Oldfield Hill was replaced after an unknown length of time by a stone-revetted box-
rampart with outer rock-cut ditch. There was a gateway on the north-east (previously excavated by Richmond)
which was not re-examined. Aerial photographs suggested a second breach in the centre of the bank on the west but

S mSJnVealld ?° featUrCS earher tban the nineteenth century. Though Toomey equates the second phase at
rerenH d Hl ^ ^ w re^nstruction of Huckhoe, he does not cite in his brief discussion of related earthworks those
recently excavated West Yorkshire examples with stone-revetted box-ramparts : these include Royd Edge, Meltham

noSivf7 VfRd’ Bmgley and Horse Close HiU Skipton. Further it would have been to the readers’ advantage had the
StTp°f lhe unexcavated, but on the ground visually similar, earthworks of Castle Hill, Denby, Lee Hill, Outlane,

man PreWn & c * 10-15 kllometre radlus of Meltham, been indicated on his location

West Yorkshixe nS ^ f°r81Ven f°r beheVmg that °ldfield Hlil is the onl7 example of this type of enclosure in

Excavation of the interior produced some evidence of possibly contemporary occupation. Several small, irregu-

y akgned and sPac4ed P°st holes formed a distinct curve whilst a number of others were in an opposed arc. Accord-

na poSSlhle]to dlsfurn any pattern and no building emerged’. Evidence of iron working

wem comuiL^ f lumPs of slaS and bur ^ claY> P^ces of redened sandstone and charcoal; though samples

co isidered too small for archaeomagnetic and/or radiocarbon dating, a useful appendix by Dr R F Tvlecote

1 imClUded- SrU fSndS’ fr°\n the mten°r a”d the banks,' include stone discs, fiintWs!
shattered quartz pebbles, a beehive quern (found in 1923) and a bifacially worked leaf-arrowhead- these are briefly
described and selected items illustrated in the body of the text and not in a separate section. 7

alreadv' mSe hnwU said tbat the results obtained through the present series of excavations contribute little to our
already meagre knowledge of the origins, function and date of these highland enclosures. Clearly more detailed work

BOOK REVIEWS AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

175

is necessary on such sites with a view to total rather than partial excavation; the former was unfortunately beyond the
financial means of the Huddersfield and District Archaeological Society. What is now required is a thoroughly
excavated and documented site which might serve as a yardstick against which comparable enclosures could be

measured.

Tolson Memorial Museum _ A. Gilks

Eileen Williams, Holmfirth: from Forest to Township, Huddersfield: Advertiser Press Ltd., 1975, I92 PP-* A 3-25-

This volume is the third in a series of local histories, published by the Advertiser Press, which have been partially
financed by means of subscription lists. The first two volumes, both edited by Bernard Jennings, were works of
scholarship which have rightly earned their place amongst the better local histories of the county. Mis. Williams
work, in contrast, is an antiquarian compilation of little historical value which cannot hope to replace Morehouse’s
excellent History of Kir kbur ton and the Graveship of Holme as the standard history of the upper Holme Valley, even
though it was written over 100 years ago. Any historian of the graveship of Holme has at his disposal an unrivalled
primary source in the form of the 700-odd court rolls of the manor of V^akefield, which cover the period 1274 to
1925. Mrs. Williams prints extracts from the printed rolls (up to 1330) and from Miss Stoke’s English abstracts (up to
1340), but has not made use of the later rolls. Her history lacks any footnotes and such extracts, as with most others
in the book, are unacknowledged. Such printed sources as have been utilised have often been misunderstood, the
Wapentake of 1307’, for example, is referred to on p.17 as though it were a document. In othei cases Mrs. Williams
has used antiquarian sources in preference to more scholarly works, even when these are easily available. Her inter-
pretations of place-names, for example, are based on those of Morehouse instead of on the volumes of the English

Place-Name Society. . , .

The value of a history such as this is the recent material it may record, often from oral sources, which is not
available elsewhere, and such a claim might be made for some of the sections of the later chapters in the book.
It would have been more useful, however, if a larger number of early photographs had been included in preference to
the less informative sketches of Wylbert Kemp. Loose in the back of the volume is a print of an enigmatic and
previously unprinted early map of the boundaries of the graveship of Holme, this being taken from the version in

Y.A.S. MD 225.

West Yorkshire County Archaeological Unit

D. J. H. Michelmore

Alan Young, Willitn Cumin: Border Politics and the Bishopric of Durham 1141-1144* Borthwick Papers, no. 54*
York: St. Antony’s Press 1978, 8op.

Dr. Young’s interesting monograph on William Cumin’s attempts to secure the bishopric of Durham in 1141
highlights a number of important themes in the history of the Northern church. Among other matters the significance
of Cumin’ seizure of the temporalities can be appreciated only against the background of Anglo-Scottish relations,
and of York’s connexion with Durham. For this reason the value of Dr. Young s study extends beyond the im-
medaite story of what occurred at Durham in 1 141.

The sequence of events at Durham was nonetheless interesting enough. V7illiam Cumin, a chancery clerk, and a
part of the Norman colonization of the upper echelons of the English Church, probably accompanied his patron,
Geoffrey Rufus, to the diocese of Durham in the 1130s. A few years later he entered the service of David I of
Scotland, and about 1136 became chancellor of Scotland. He was therefore an important figure among those
Norman administrators with whose help David I hoped to remodel his kingdom on Anglo-Norman lines.

Cumin certainly had Durham connections and in 1140 when Geoffrey Rufus was on the point of death, Cumin
attempted to seize the bishopric. The bishop’s death was concealed for three days so that Cumin could secure the
support of David I. Cumin’s plans were checked, however, by resistance within the Durham chapter, and by the
papal legate, Henry of Blois, who forbade Cumin to accept the bishopric unless canonically elected. Finally in 1143
William of Saint Barbara, Dean of York, was elected bishop of Durham. Even then Cumin did not give up the
struggle and the skirmishes in which he engaged in defence of his interests, although they scarcely constitute an
edifying chapter in the history of the Northern province, tell us much more about the twelfth-century Church.

In this well researched monograph, Dr. Young brings out the main significance of the events. Cumin s control of
Durham was an important factor in the extension of Scottish interest in the south. Cumin himself was a Norman
who lived in an era before political divisions between England and Scotland had hardened in the thirteenth century,
and to whom English and Scottish ‘national interests’ clearly meant little. Although Cumin was never elected bishop,
the fact that he was able to seize the temporalities of the see casts an interesting light upon the weakness of York
in this period. Particularly after the disputed election of 1140, in which various relatives of Henry of Blois were
nominated to the see, York was in no position to exercise metropolitan authority over its Northern suffragans, and
particularly the powerful bishop of Durham. Finally Cumin s career reflects the character of the civil war between
Stephen and Matilda, for the Empress, who supported Cumin, was prepared to invest him with the ring and staff
of office despite the Church’s objection to lay investiture. Nonetheless she was forced to flee abroad on the day set
aside for his consecration. There can be few incidents which better illustrate the intersection of these different
themes, and Dr. Young is to be congratulated as much on the selection of his topic as on its presentation.

University of Leeds John Taylor

SHORTER NOTICES

Borthwick Institute Bulletin, I, 4* York 1978, pp. do, 5opJ-iop p- and p. from the Borthwick Institute, St. Anthony s

Hall York YOi 2PW. i . rT „ ,

In this number Dr. Janet Burton discusses a file of documents dealing with the election in 1524 of Joan Fletcher
from Rosedale as prioress of the six nuns at the tiny Cistercian nunnery of Baysdale near Stokesley. Dr. R. N.
Swanson lists and summarises some ninety papal letters on a variety of topics issued between 1378 and 1415. The
evidence for these comes from the ecclesiastical archives at York. There is also a list of parish registers deposited at
the Institute and a report of its work in 1977-8.

176

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

J°seph Lawson, Progress in Pudsey, Firle, Sussex: Caliban Books, 1978, pp. is4 /7.<0.

YnrLcIi '^S arernt °f J br°k o”1 Publlshed in i887. giving a vivid picture of social life in a small area of West
o 'shire in the penod after 1825. It covers marriage, education, employment, mostly in the cloth trade relieion
and superstmon, music, the building of a lecture hall and the author’s hopes for future progress The writer a
woollen manufacturer and journalist, was born in Pudsey in 1821. The cost of a reprint of so short a wmk un-
illustrated and in an unvaried type, seems rather high. ’

fnd°phn! 3Tp0“DGE' 0<,kimn ^ Huddersfield: Kirklees Librari“ a»d Museums Service, 1978, pp. 32+10 figs.

This attractive guide to a sixteenth-century house in Birstall includes a history of its owners from the fourteenth
.““f0 the P‘esent> a brief description of the building, and ample illustrations. The hall belonged to the Batt
family from 0:1560 to 1747, then to the Fearnleys, and, from 1830 to 1894 housed a boarding schod fhe oririnal of
Bnarmams in Charlotte Bronte's Shirley Accounts, court rolls and local traditions give interest kg ^bacWound
material for visitors to this well-preserved Elizabethan manor house. ° DacK&round

0fC0,linghm I579-1837’ ilkk7: Y’A-S' Pari* Register Section,

Pansb Collmgham contains the hamlet of Compton and once included Micklethwaite now part of
Wetherby. This full tianscnpt of the registers has some of the many gaps filled from the Bishop’s transcrints The
index shows that some of the commonest surnames were Booker, Dalby, Hodgson, Mamerison Midcdev and

Thk^WL Whl C- agncubural. occupations— farmers, labourers, carpenters, millers and smiths— Predominated
This, like the previous publications of the section, will be useful to social historians and genealogists.

Richmond and District Civic Society, Annual Report I, Richmond 1978, pp. 48 illus.

w*nJ^lteT0tltSTSma11 format tbis feP°rt is able to include accounts of two pre-Conquest carved stones from Gilline
West by J. T. Lang, notes on the history and occupiers of several Richmond buildings, recollections of early cinema!

««sk«5S2: aas-* -rssttss

The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 51, 1979

177

YORKSHIRE BIBLIOGRAPHY 1978

By A. M. RUTHERFORD

This bibliography contains i) articles on the history and archaeology of Yorkshire, ii) the record and other publica-
tions of Yorkshire societies and institutions noted since the ‘Yorkshire Bibliography 1977’ ( Y.A.J . 1978), excluding
articles in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal itself.

A few relevant items from non-Yorkshire local and specialist periodicals have been included, but no attempt has
been made to list articles in national periodicals. These may be traced in British Humanities Index and, more
selectively but with some foreign material included, in the Antiquaries Journal List of ‘Periodical Literature’.

The periodicals and other publications searched, and the abbreviations used, are as follows.

Agr Hist Rev
BT

Blanc S

BI Bull

BTC

BHAS

BST

C &TLHS Bull
C &TLHSH
CLHS
CLHJ

CPRE YLDB

EYFHSN

EYLHS

EYLHS Bull

FYM

GSEY

HAST

HLHS

Ind Past

T Hist Geog

LdsAC

LdsUR

NY &CVBSGN

NYCROP

PAJ

REED

RyeH

SHS Bull

SSP

Trans. Inst. Br.

Geogr.

TASP
VS WYG
WHSJ
WHS YB
YAGP
YGS
York H
YH

YAS FHPSS
YAS IHS
YAS LHSS
YAS MS
YAS PRSB
YAS RS
Yorks Arch
YDS SB
YPS

Agricultural History Review

The Banyan Tree (East Yorkshire Family History Society Newsletter)

Blanc Sanglier (Richard III Society)

Borthwick Institute Bulletin

Borthwick Papers

Borthwick Texts and Calendars

Bradford Historical and Antiquarian Society

Bronte Society Transactions

Cleveland and Teeside Local History Society Bulletin
Cleveland and Teeside Local History Society Newsletter
Cottingham Local History Series
Cottingham Local History Society Journal

Council for the Preservation of Rural England, Yorkshire Lower Dales Branch, Quarterly News-
letter

Current Research in Archaeology

East Yorkshire Family History Society Newsletter

(separate from The Banyan Tree)

East Yorkshire Local History Series
East Yorkshire Local History Society Bulletin
Friends of York Minster Annual Report
Georgian Society for East Yorkshire
Halifax Antiquarian Society Transactions

Hedon Local FEstory Series (Hedon and District Local History Society)

Industrial Past

Journal of Historical Geography
Leeds Arts Calendar
Leeds University Reporter

North Yorkshire and Cleveland Vernacular Buildings Study Group Newsletter
North Yorkshire County Record Office Publications
Northern History

Pontefract Archaeological Journal (Pontefract and District Archaeological Society)

Records of Early English Drama (University of Toronto)

Ryedale Historian

Saddleworth Historical Society Bulletin
Surtees Society Publications

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
Todmorden Antiquarian Society Publications
Victorian Society, West Yorkshire Group Newsletter
Wakefield Historical Society Journal
Wesley Historical Society, Yorkshire Branch
City of York Art Gallery Bulletin (Preview)

York Georgian Society Annual Report
York Historian
York History

Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Family and Population Studies Section Newsletter
Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Industrial History Section Spring Newsletter
Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Local History Study Section Bulletin
Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Mediaeval Section Newsletter (Sciant Praesentes)

Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Prehistory Research Section Bulletin
Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series
Yorkshire Archaeology (CBA Group 4 Newsletter for 1978)

Yorkshire Dialect Society, Summer Bulletin
Yorkshire Philosophical Society Annual Report

THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

I78

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ai) ACCESSIONS
Ai Accessions, Borthwick Institute. BI Bull 1 (4) 1978, 136.

A2 Acquisitions. WES HSYB no. 32, Apr. 1978, 19-27; no. 33, Sept. 1978, 31-44* (Archival notes on items
acquired by the Society, nos. 359-464, 465-846.).

A3 Archive accessions 1977. NH 14, 1978, 252-255.

A4 Record Offices. Humberside County Record Office, Beverley. Accessions during 1977 (select list)- Hull
University Library. EYLHS Bull no. 17, Apr. 1978, [1-2.].

TYRELL, D. Archive accessions 1976/7. Brief list of some of the more important material deposited in
Cleveland County Archives, Middlesbrough in 1976 & 1977. C &TLHS News 1, Dec. 1977.

A6 I\ REEL, D. Archive accessions. Brief list of the more important accessions to the Archives Dept, of Cleve-
land County Libraries during 1978. C&TLHS News 3, Dec. 1978 4
Aii) TRANSCIPTIONS AND FACSIMILES OF SOURCE MATERIAL

A 7 Additions and corrections to N. Pevsner’s ‘Buildings of England— York and the East Riding’ EYLHS Bull

no. 18, Sept. 1978, 2.

ASHCROFT, M. Y. To escape the monster’s clutches. Notes and documents illustrating preparations in
North Yorkshire to repel the invasion threatened by the French from 1793. NYCROP no. 15, 1977.

A9 BARNES, Bernard. Saddleworth sales advertised in the Manchester newspapers. [1783-1849.] SHS Bull 8 (1)
Spring 1978, 11-12. v '

A ro BARNES, Bernard. Saddleworth sales advertised in the ‘Manchester Mercury’. SHS Bull 8 (2) Summer 1078
30. [1771, 1795].

An BURTON, Janet E. The Cartulary of the Treasurer of York Mmster and related documents. B TC Records
of the Northern Province, 5. 1978.

A 1 2 DRAKE, M. Information from Account Books. Pts. 1 & 2. YAS FHPSS 4 (1) Feb. 1978, 113-114; 4 (2) Apr.

1978, 123-124. (Lists many names of families in the Thwaite area in the 1830s and 40s).

A13 EMSLEY, Clive, ed. HILL, A. M. and ASHCROFT, M. Y., transcr, and ed. North Ridine naval recruits;

the Quota Acts and the Quota men, 1795-1797- NYCROP no. 18, 1978.

A14 Extract from Richard Viney’s diary May 19th 1744. CPRE YLDB, no. 23, Spring 1978, 2-3. (An 18th cent.

religious reformer cind Tvlor;ivian. Account of 3 journey trom Pudsey to ^fonsley).

A15 GOLISTI, K. M. Churchyard and monumental inscriptions, nos. 30-35. YAS FHPSS 4 (1) Feb. 1978,

I0^1^2’ 4 Apr' I9?8’ Il6_II7; 4 (3) June 1978, 134; 4 (4) Aug. 1978, 148-149; 4 (5) Oct. 1978, 164-165;’
4 (6) Dec. 1978, 181.

A 16 GREENE, Douglas G. ed. The meditations of Lady Elizabeth Delaval, written between 1662 and 1671 SSP
190, for 1975, 1978.

A17 FIILL, Audrey and JAQUES, H. transcr. Extracts from Skipton-in-Craven churchwardens’ accounts, in
JAQUES, North Yorkshire churchwardens accounts in the 18th century. NYCROP no. 17, Jl.6 1978, 80-105.
A18 HOYLE, Richard. Lord Thanet’s Benefaction to the Poor of Craven in 1685. 1978 (DD121/88 ’ Skiptoii
Castle archive).

A 19 Huddersfield Canal Company records. SHS Bull 8 (4) Winter 1978, 68-71.

A20 Manor records. Pt. 12; 1807-1810; Pt. 13: 1815-1825. SHS Bull 8 (1) Spring 1978, 5-8; 8 (2) Summer 1978,
2)6 .

A'1'! Manor records: Saddleworth Inclosure, Pts. 1, 2, 3. SHS Bull 8 (2) Summer 1978, 27-28; 8 (3) Autumn 1978.
43-52; 8 (4) Winter 1978, 61-68.

A22 MOORHOUSE, Stephen. Kirkstall Abbey documents. YTS MS no. 4, Feb. 1978, 3-4.

A23 PERRY, Jennifer. York-Oswaldkirk Turnpike Trust 1768-1881. NYCROP no. 12 1977.

A24 RICHARDSON, Harold, ed. Court Rolls of the Manor of Acomb.Vol. 2. YASRSv ol. 137, for 1975. 1978.
(Calendar complete to 1800, selective, 1800-1846. Includes new material supplementary to vol 1 YAS RS
vol. 131, 1968).

A25 ?£?£J^P1SONG(?odfrey; Leeds Parish Church ^ters. YAS FHPSS 4 (5) Oct. 1978, 174. (Correction to
FHPSS s list of libraries holding transcripts, re Guildhall holdings).

A26 WENHAM, L. P. Richmond burgages. NYCROP no. 16 1978. (Surveys of 1679, 1773 & 1820).

A27 WENHAM, L. P. ed. Richmond Municipal Reform Association Minute Books, 1841-1859 NYCROP no
19, 1978.

A28 WHITEHEAD, Barbara. Family bibles. YHS FHPSS 4 (3) June 1978, 139-140 (Entries relating to Ross,
Lingard, Bower, Platt & Smith families).

A29 WHITEHEAD, Barbara. Strays. YAS FHPSS 4 (3) June 1978, 137-138 (Yorkshire entries in out-county
registers). ;

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